~ 1 


The  Mature  Man's  Difficulties 
With  His  Bible 

D.  W.   FAUNCE,  D.  D. 

Author  of 
"A    Young  Man's  Difficulties  with   His  Bible" 


OCT  ^9  1908      *; 


THE  MATURE  MAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 
WITH  HIS  BIBLE 


THE  MATURE  MAN'S 
DIFFICULTIES 
WITH  HIS  BIBLE 


By 

D.  W.  Faunce,  D.  D. 

Author  of 

"  A  Young  Man's  Difficulties  with  His  Bible  " 

"Inspiration  Considered  as  a  Trend" 

"  Hours  with  a  Sceptic,"  etc. 


Philadelphia 

American  Baptist  Publication  Society 

Boston  Chicago  Atlanta 

New  York        St.  Louis  Dallas 


Copyright  1908  by  the 
Ambrican  Baptist  Publication  Society 


Published  February,  1908 


from  tbe  Society '8  own  |>re»9 


PREFATORY    NOTE 


Some  years  ago  the  author  of  this  volume  put 
forth  a  little  book  entitled  "  A  Young  Man's  Dif- 
ficulties with  His  Bible."  A  friend  sends  him  this 
word :  "  Your  other  book  helped  me,  as  well  as  many 
others,  when  I  was  a  young  man.  Now  prepare 
another  book  as  its  companion  on  the  more  mature 
man's  difficulties  with  his  Bible,  taking  up  the  more 
modern  difficulties,  as  you  have  met  them  in  your 
pastoral  work."  The  result  of  this  advice  is  the 
present  volume.  The  author  has  had  in  mind  not 
so  much  the  professed  theologian,  nor  yet  those 
whose  abundant  leisure  allows  them  to  read  larger 
volumes,  but  those  busy  men  who  still  find  time  to 
read  the  newer  books  and  the  magazines  in  which, 
not  infrequently,  difficulties  are  suggested  concern- 
ing biblical  facts. 

May  He  who  used  the  other  book  to  help  some 
who  now  occupy  foremost  places  in  the  church  and 
the  world,  condescend  to  bless  this  humble  effort  of 
one  who  keenly  feels  some  of  the  modern  objections 
to  biblical  statements,  and  yet  still  loves  and  trusts 
the  Book  on  the  study  of  which  he  has  bestowed 
more  than  half  a  century — a  Book  he  hopes  by  and 
by  to  study  more  fully  in  the  light  of  the  counte- 
nance of  God. 

Providence,  R.  I.,  1908.  D.    W.    FAUNCE. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Pagb 

I.  The  Bible  and  Mathematical  Certainty    .  9 

II.  The  Bible  and  the  Scientific  Spirit   ...  26 

III.  The  Bible  and  the  Historic  Spirit  ....  50 

IV.  The  Bible  and  its  Morality 93 

V.  The  Bible  and  its  Method 107 

VI.  The  Biblical  Christ  and  Human  Thinking  119 


The  Mature  Man's 

Difficulties  with 

His  Bible 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    BIBLE    AND    MATHEMATICAL    CERTAINTY 

A  young  man's  difficulties  with  his  Bible  l  may 
have  ceased  to  disturb  him.  His  former  questions 
have  had  for  him  a  fairly  satisfactory  answer.  Ob- 
jections once  deemed  almost  fatal  to  his  belief  in 
the  Bible  have  disappeared  under  his  increasing 
knowledge  of  the  volume. 

But  there  may  have  come  to  him  new  perplexities. 
In  the  very  process  of  settling  the  old  questions  new 
ones  have  emerged,  so  that  though  substantial  van- 
tage has  been  gained,  and  certain  facts  are  fixed 
beyond  all  reasonable  doubt  in  his  mind,  other  diffi- 
culties of  a  wholly  unlike  kind  confront  him  as  he 
advances  into  middle  life  and  as  he  goes  on  into 
those    more    philosophic    years    which    belong    to 

1  See  "  A  Young  Man's  Difficulties  with  His  Bible,"  by  the  author. 

9 


10  THE   MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

thoughtful  age.  New  knowledge  not  only  of  the 
Bible  itself,  but  of  human  opinions  about  its  inter- 
pretation, brings  new  questions  which  require  new 
solutions.  And  these  very  solutions  often  suggest 
to  the  growing  man  new  difficulties.  They  may, 
however,  only  show  where  the  man  now  stands. 
They  indicate  his  present  latitude  and  longitude. 
In  the  end,  if  this  man  is  obedient  in  heart  and  life 
to  the  truth  as  it  is  given  him  to  see  it,  he  will 
be  led  on  to  larger  certainty  and  a  more  firmly 
established  faith.  ' 

This  process  is  recognized  in  all  other  depart- 
ments of  human  knowledge.  Every  step  in  discov- 
ery, with  its  new  certainties,  discloses  to  the  student 
additional  problems  for  fresh  investigation.  Alps 
rise  above  Alps,  and  if  their  number  and  height  at 
first  appall  and  discourage,  in  the  end  they  are  an 
incentive  to  the  ambition  of  the  man  who  climbs 
earnestly  and  means  to  be  victorious.  But  his  views 
of  the  mountains  he  is  climbing  change  somewhat 
with  every  mile  he  travels.  The  change  is  not  in 
the  Alps,  but  in  the  position  of  the  man  who  climbs. 
In  the  case  of  the  biblical  student  the  change  is  not 
in  the  book,  but  in  the  man's  own  larger  develop- 
ment. He  is  himself  moving  onward.  And  this 
makes  all  the  difference.  Youth  does  not  on  any 
subject  see  with  the  same  eye  as  does  manhood. 
A  boy  standing  on  the  shore  of  a  bay  with  which 
he  is  familiar  thinks  the  bay  to  be  the  ocean.  By 
and  by,  sailing  outside  the  bay,  he  comes  to  the 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY       II 

actual  ocean  itself.  The  heavens  with  their  few 
stars  in  his  home  sky  are  now  a  vast  dome  set  in 
its  immeasurable  depths  with  starry  worlds,  and 
those  heavens  are  bending  over  and  bounding  that 
ocean  on  every  side.  He  is  in  a  larger  world.  And 
this  process  of  a  broadening  experience  obtains  not 
only  in  common  life  and  in  scientific  research,  but 
it  has  especial  development  in  a  man's  study  of  the 
Bible.  New  questions  necessarily  arise  with  new  in- 
vestigations. New  knowledge  settles  some  difficulties 
only  to  open  others. 

So  too,  it  is  a  commonly  recognized  matter  that 
during  the  last  fifty  years  there  has  been  a  great 
development  in  analytical  method.  Sometimes  it  is 
forgotten  that  analysis  is  only  one  of  the  tools  for 
securing  mental  and  moral  results;  that  analysis 
needs  synthesis  to  achieve  anything  of  worth. 
Analysis  picks  apart  when  there  is  complexity. 
Synthesis  selects  among  materials,  throws  away  the 
useless,  and  combines  all  that  is  proven  into  a  new 
and  completed  whole.  The  great  tendency  of  the 
present  time  is  to  analyze — and  to  stop  just  there. 
It  is  simply  to  make  objections;  to  pull  apart  and 
never  bring  together;  only  to  criticize;  to  mark 
sun-spot  and  forget  sunshine.  By  this  one-sided 
method  no  man  can  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth.  It  simply  encourages  his  own  mind  in  nega- 
tion. Instead  of  "  the  will  to  believe,"  by  which 
alone  there  is  any  real  progress,  he  cultivates  "  the 
will   to  doubt."     One   must  resist  this  tendency; 


12  THE   MATURE   MAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 

or  rather,  one  must  practise  himself  in  the  habit 
of  synthetic  construction  as  he  gets  on  in  life. 
For  only  in  this  way  can  he  acquire  the  power 
and  precision  that  will  be  a  continuous  source  of 
satisfaction  in  the  ripeness  of  a  serene  age. 

Analysis  must  indeed  be  given  its  due  place. 
We  cannot  walk  comfortably  over  suspected  ground 
by  refusing  to  know  what  a  careful  and  reverent 
scholarship  has  ascertained  about  the  biblical  books, 
nor  can  we  refuse  to  examine  that  great  volume 
of  religious  experience  in  which  spiritual  souls  have 
expressed  their  satisfactions.  But  these  results  of 
scholarship  and  testimonies  of  Christian  souls  are 
mere  material  furnished  for  that  synthesis  which 
by  seeing  truth  as  related  to  truth,  rejoices  in  the 
grand  wholeness  of  biblical  teaching.  We  must 
guard  ourselves  against  the  narrowness  that  sees 
only  single  incidents,  and  forgets  the  great  purpose 
and  final  end  of  God  in  revelation.  The  peculiari- 
ties of  the  Scripture  writings,  their  great  variety, 
their  wonderful  compass  as  now  historical  and  then 
devotional,  as  at  one  time  prophetic  and  at  another 
biographical,  as  here  narrative  in  form  and  there 
epistolary,  as  Semitic  in  tone  and  yet  world-wide 
in  spirit,  as  Oriental  in  phrase  and  yet  universal 
in  moral  import,  as  belonging  to  successive  periods 
of  what  is  now  antiquity  and  yet  so  broad  in  scope 
as  to  cover  the  present  and  unfold  the  future — all 
these  things  in  their  multiplicity  show  where  diffi- 
culties are  sure  to  be  found  by  the  student,  unless 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY      I3 

he  can  learn  to  adjust  part  to  part  and  have 
due  respect  to  the  relation  of  each  part  to  the  grand 
wholeness  of  the  volume. 

In  the  course  of  this  discussion,  it  is  proposed  to 
name  some  of  these  difficulties  which  naturally  occur 
to  those  passing  out  of  early  manhood  into  maturer 
years;  difficulties,  also,  suggested  by  more  modern 
questions  about  the  Bible. 

Proof  that  Shall  be  Beyond  all  Possibility 
of  Mistake. 

A  friend  puts  it  in  this  way :  "  In  so  important 
a  matter,  involving  such  immense  interests  in  this 
world  and  that  to  come,  there  should  be  no  pos- 
sibility of  any  man's  making  a  mistake  about  the 
Bible  as  a  revelation  from  God.  There  should  be 
evidence  equal  to  mathematical  demonstration." 
The  new  study  of  comparative  religions  has  made 
the  Christian  world  thoroughly  aware  that  there  are 
other  sacred  books.  Arnold's  "  Light  of  Asia  "  was 
to  the  popular  mind  a  revelation  of  what  scholarly 
men  had  always  known.  It  was  seen  that  great 
systems  of  religion  were  founded  on  those  sacred 
books.  Children  were  taught  them  as  our  children 
are  the  Bible.  And  all  this  was  especially  true  of 
the  Orient.  That  Orient  is  the  natural  home  of  re- 
ligions. It  was  urged  that  all  of  them  were  more 
venerable  and  had  swayed  more  millions  than  our 
Christianity;  that  these  people  of  the  far  East, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  were  always  ready 


14  THE   MATURE   MAN  S  DIFFICULTIES 

to  discuss  their  religions.  They  are  earnest  and 
honest  about  their  beliefs.  The  greatest  temples 
and  the  most  extensive  worship  of  the  world  are 
found  in  those  lands.  Those  religions  have  their 
saints  and  martyrs,  their  heroes  and  apostles. 
Prayers  and  hymns  they  have,  in  some  instances 
singularly  like  our  Psalms,  in  one  sentence — to  be 
followed  indeed,  in  the  next,  with  words  of  the 
most  revolting  superstition.  From  some  source 
there  have  come  into  these  most  degraded  systems 
of  belief,  sentiments  of  justice  and  maxims  of 
morality.  These  better  teachings  may  be  due  to 
those  great  ethical  ideas  natural  to  every  human 
soul.  They  must  have  come  also,  as  the  survivals 
of  an  originally  pure  faith,  of  which  all  these  sys- 
tems are  a  terrible  corruption.  In  each  of  these 
systems,  considered  as  a  system,  there  is  nothing 
to  be  commended  and  everything  to  be,  as  a  system, 
condemned.  But  while  all  of  them  are  a  departure 
from  the  primitive  monotheism,  some  of  them  are 
an  advance  on  the  systems  that  preceded  them, 
showing  how  that  Divine  Providence  which  pre- 
sided over  the  moral  development  of  the  race  is  to  be 
seen  as  preparing  step  by  step  for  the  reception 
of  the  one  pure  faith  of  Christ. 

And  just  as  there  are  gleams  of  a  better  thought 
in  these  religions,  notwithstanding  all  their  debase- 
ment, so  there  have  appeared  all  along  through  the 
centuries  men  of  philosophic  mind  who,  while  de- 
fending the  popular  beliefs  of  their  time,  were  far 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY      1 5 

above  their  fellow-men  in  their  individual  charac- 
ter. They  do  not  seem  to  have  seen  the  complete 
antagonism  between  their  religious  theories  and  the 
morality  they  taught  and  which  they  often  prac- 
tised. They  failed  to  notice  that  their  influence, 
since  they  clung  to  their  religions,  was  on  the  whole 
disastrous  to  their  fellow-men;  that  while  they 
were  weaving  their  poetic  fancies  about  the  most 
monstrous  beliefs,  the  people  were  taking  those 
fables  for  facts;  that  while  these  better  men  were 
defending  those  wretched  beliefs  by  theories  of 
philosophy,  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  in  apply- 
ing those  beliefs  to  common  life,  were  sinking  into 
the  most  hopeless  depravity.  There  is  evil  enough 
in  Christian  lands,  but  it  is  all  absolutely  contrary 
to  the  teachings  of  the  Bible,  while  in  heathendom 
the  abominations  are  the  direct  result  of  the  super- 
stition engendered  by  the  sacred  books.  The  evil 
inheres  in  the  system.  The  poison  is  in  the  blood. 
The  sad  fruitage  is  the  legitimate  product  of  the 
evil  tree. 

As  one  studies  these  religions,  the  question  will 
force  itself  upon  him  whether  all  this  could  not 
have  been  prevented;  whether  a  Bible  could  not 
have  been  given  to  the  world  so  thoroughly  authen- 
ticated that  mistake  as  to  its  divine  origin  would 
be  impossible. 

We  might  think  that  the  divine  prompting — con- 
sidered apart  from  the  divine  wisdom — would  lead 
to  such  a  volume.     But  what  if  such  a  volume — 


l6  THE  MATURE   MAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 

dropping  now  the  consideration  of  its  possibility — 
would  thwart  the  very  purpose  God  had  in  putting 
man  where  through  moral  discipline  he  could 
achieve  moral  character  ?  A  Bible  that  a  man  would 
have  to  believe  because  he  could  not  help  it  would 
secure  a  belief  without  the  slightest  moral  value. 
Something  would  be  gained  in  certainty;  but  far 
more  would  be  lost  in  other  respects.  In  that  way 
— if  it  were  possible — all  difficulties  would  be 
avoided;  all  beliefs  become  one  by  ceasing  to  be 
moral,  because  merely  intellectual  beliefs;  and  the 
Bible  would  become  a  kind  of  religious  Euclid. 
Only  in  that  way  could  the  proposed  unity  be  pos- 
sible. But  even  then  would  this  proposed  end  be 
secured?  By  the  conditions  of  the  problem,  proof 
beyond  all  possibility  of  mistake — substantially 
mathematical  proof — that  God  speaks  in  the  Bible, 
is  to  be  furnished.  This  would  mean  not  only  a 
miracle  in  the  book,  but  a  miracle  in  each  man's 
case,  securing  him  from  mistake  as  to  the  biblical 
revelation.  This  would  mean  as  many  miracles  as 
there  are  men.  And  each  man  must  have  the  mir- 
acle repeated  as  often  as  he  opens  the  supposed 
Bible.  To  state  clearly  such  a  proposition  about  a 
Bible  and  about  the  men  who  were  to  use  it  is 
sufficient  to  show  its  impossibility. 

But  what  is  possible  is  just  this:  a  special  reve- 
lation in  which  God  peculiarly  reveals  himself  along 
the  lines  of  human  literature;  in  other  terms,  a 
"  written  revelation  "  about  himself.     True,  some 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY       VJ 

have  spoken  against  what  they  have  been  pleased 
to  call  a  "  book  revelation."  But  why  not  a  "  book 
revelation  "  ?  A  man  through  a  book  instructs  his 
brother  man.  Surely  then,  God  may  teach  man 
made  in  his  own  image  by  a  book.  He  has  used 
a  thousand  things  in  the  material  world  for  re- 
vealing himself  preparatory  to  that  of  a  revelation 
by  means  of  human  literature.  He  made  the  world 
not  only  for  man's  dwelling-place,  but  for  the  mani- 
festation of  his  own  wisdom  and  power.  "  All  thy 
works  praise  thee,"  cries  a  devout  singer  of  the 
olden  time.  When  a  party  of  men  was  standing 
on  an  eminence  which  overlooked  an  extensive  park 
laid  out  by  a  great  landscape  gardener,  one  of  the 
party  turned  to  him  with  the  remark,  "  And  you 
love  all  this  beauty?"  The  quick  answer  came, 
"  Yes ;  and  another  loves  it  more  than  I  do." 
"And  who  may  he  be?"  was  the  next  question. 
Baring  reverently  his  head,  the  gardener  answered, 
"  God ;  he  loves  beauty  and  reveals  himself  in  it. 
This  is  his  handwriting  through  me."  The  hand- 
writing of  God  through  the  handwriting  of  men  in 
the  forms  of  human  literature  is  within  the  bounds 
of  the  possible.  And  if  we  pass  from  the  simple 
idea  of  a  book  to  that  of  a  great  thought  running 
through  it,  we  are  still  in  the  realm  of  the  possibil- 
ities. If  human  language,  as  most  of  us  believe, 
was  a  special  gift  of  God,  bestowed  that  man  might 
speak  not  only  to  his  Creator,  but  to  his  fellow-men, 
then  that  power  of  consecutive  thought  which  lies 


l8  THE    MATURE    MAN'S    DIFFICULTIES 

back  of  human  language  and  finds  in  it  its  expres- 
sion, can  be  utilized  in  the  divine  wisdom  by  fur- 
nishing such  a  book  to  the  world.  Literature  has 
its  many  examples  of  what  may  be  called  human 
inspiration,  in  which  a  man  of  remarkable  genius 
impresses  his  thought  on  others  so  deeply  that  a 
whole  generation  of  writers  and  speakers  has  felt 
his  preponderating  influence.  It  were  then,  a  pos- 
sible thing  for  God  divinely  to  inspire  men  who  had 
"  the  genius  for  religion,"  and  the  result  would  be 
a  series  of  books,  written  indeed  by  men,  each 
writer  exhibiting  his  own  peculiar  style,  and  equally, 
each  under  the  guidance,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, of  special  divine  inspiration.  One  great 
thought  getting  always  more  complete  expression 
as  the  ages  should  run  on  would  pervade  such 
a  series  of  sacred  books.  And  they  should  all 
tend  to  a  culmination  in  some  Person  than  whom 
there  could  not  be  a  greater  manifestation  of 
God.  For  thought  seeks  always  embodiment  in 
personality. 

A  book  of  many  parts  made  one  by  a  single 
dominating  thought  coming  from  God  and  as  a 
special  revelation,  is  possible.  Advancing  another 
step,  we  may  claim  that  such  a  revelation  is  not 
only  a  possibility,  but  that  it  has  an  immense 
probability.  Whatever  may  have  been  true  of  the 
probable  methods  of  God  in  his  self -revelation  in 
former  centuries,  our  own  century  asks  for  au- 
thentic  and    documentary   proofs    of   past   events. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY      IQ 

Surely  it  would  be  expected  that  if  God  took  into 
account  the  expectations  of  former  centuries  as  to 
the  manner  of  revealing  himself  to  them,  he 
would  have  regard,  likewise,  to  the  expectations 
of  an  age  capable  of  estimating  the  literary  value 
of  a  record  of  historic  facts.  Some  such  book  is 
demanded  by  the  situation,  and  such  a  book  has 
been  given. 

And  never  has  this  book  which  Christians  regard 
as  a  sacred  volume  been  so  much  studied  as  it  is 
to-day.  A  vast  literature  from  the  world's  foremost 
scholars  has  grown  up  about  it.  What  if  the  de- 
mand of  these  present  centuries,  ripe  for  historic 
study,  was  foreseen,  and  the  documentary  evidence 
of  a  whole  series  of  divine  manifestations  preserved 
for  this  very  time  of  special  need?  Surely,  all 
this  was  not  only  possible,  but  probable.  There 
would  be  no  need  of  repeating  the  events,  with  such 
a  record  carefully  made.  History  is  being  pushed 
back  by  modern  investigation.  Documents  older 
than  Genesis  get  the  credence  of  scholars.  The 
historical  methods  of  half  a  century  ago,  by  which 
nearly  all  historic  material  was  held  to  be  more 
or  less  mythical,  are  no  longer  pursued.  Positions 
then  held  are  utterly  abandoned  to-day.  The  old 
results,  mainly  negative,  are  now  discredited.  We 
are  getting  more  and  more  confidence  in  historic 
certainty.  It  is  seen  that  the  biblical  incidents  lie 
far  within  the  scope  of  historic  verity.  It  is  recog- 
nized that  such  a  record  as  that  of  the  Bible  could 


20  THE  MATURE   MAN  S  DIFFICULTIES 

have  been  made ;  and  that  if  made,  would  be  of  im- 
mense worth  not  only  for  man's  moral  welfare,  but 
for  the  better  self -revelation  of  God.  So  too,  it  is 
getting  to  be  recognized  that  the  Bible,  if  a  revela- 
tion from  God  about  himself,  should  not  be  treated 
as  if  it  were  simply  a  record  of  man's  moral  de- 
velopment through  the  successive  ages  of  human 
history.  It  would  be  then  on  a  par  with  any  other 
ancient  book  in  which  we  might  discern  incidentally 
human  development.  Homer  shows  the  Homeric 
age  and  Virgil  the  splendor  of  the  Roman  centuries 
in  literary  art.  All  such  things  can  be  ascertained 
from  ordinary  volumes.  They  are  man's  history  of 
man.  But  the  Bible  purports  to  be  God's  history  of 
God  as  he  has  manifested  himself,  and  as  he  has 
secured,  through  man,  the  record  of  those  mani- 
festations. Such  a  kind  of  Bible  is  the  only  Bible 
worth  having.  Such  a  volume,  recording  these 
manifesting  events,  prepared  by  human  writers  who 
have  divine  sanctions  for  their  work,  gives  us  the 
nearest  approach  possible  to  that  religious  certainty 
which  some  would  demand.  It  is  no  book  written  in 
the  skies  and  let  down  ready-made  to  the  earth. 
It  is  a  book  that  had  a  steady  growth  to  an  evident 
culmination — a  book  intended  not  to  end  all  study, 
but  to  stir  men  to  continuous  study,  so  that  God's 
revelations  in  it  may  be  better  understood. 

The  crass  mechanical  conception  of  "  a  book 
about  which  it  would  be  impossible  for  any  man  to 
make  a  mistake  "  must  be  abandoned.    It  would  be 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY      21 

as  impossible  a  book  as  it  would  be  a  useless  one 
for  the  end  desired.  Consider  also,  that  such  a 
book  would  have  no  correlation  to  known  historic 
events.  It  would  have  to  stand  utterly  apart  from 
all  human  literature,  and  so  would  really  defeat 
the  purpose  of  a  revelation  from  God  through  that 
medium.  In  the  case  of  such  a  supposed  book,  all 
intellectual  and  moral  considerations  as  proofs  of 
its  origin  would  have  no  place.  One  question — one 
only — was  it  written  in  heaven  and  dropped  down 
among  men — would  be  before  us.  All  would  be 
staked  on  a  single  alleged  fact;  and  that  fact  a 
difficult  one  to  prove.  The  supposed  book  could 
have  no  alliance  with  any  event  in  the  long  history 
of  the  past,  and  so  no  hold  on  the  sympathy  of 
mankind.  It  would  be  a  picture  without  per- 
spective. There  would  be  no  interweaving  of  its 
events  with  the  history  of  mankind.  Its  certainty 
— the  only  possible  reason  for  such  a  book — could 
extend  only  to  a  few  things.  Its  advent  would  be 
the  solitary  instance  of  an  unconnected  fact. 

Happily,  we  are  not  shut  up  to  so  crass  a  con- 
ception. Happily,  we  have  no  such  Bible.  We 
can  approach  the  necessary  degree  of  moral  cer- 
tainty in  quite  another  way.  Step  by  step  we  get 
at  our  assurance.  We  do  it  by  comparing  part  with 
part,  by  evidence  external  and  internal,  by  the  testi- 
mony which  comes  from  historical  study  and  also 
from  the  cognate  experiential  evidence  of  long  cen- 
turies of  Christian  men  and  women  as  to  the  re- 


22  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

suits  of  believing  the  Christian  facts  and  practising 
the  Christian  precepts.  The  evidence  is  varied  and 
cumulative.  The  divine  method  meets  the  needs. 
All  other  proposed  methods  for  giving  us  a  Bible 
start  a  perfect  host  of  difficulties  that  far  outnum- 
ber those  presented  by  the  Bible  actually  in  our 
hands.  Tested  by  years  of  study,  the  biblical  method 
that  God  has  chosen  more  and  more  commends 
itself.  We  would  not  change  it  if  we  could,  and 
could  not  if  we  would.  There  are  kinds  of  proof 
on  such  matters  quite  as  reliable  as  is  mathematical 
proof  in  its  own  department. 

It  is  sometimes  asked  if  God  will  permit  an  hon- 
est seeker  to  make  fatal  mistake  about  the  Bible. 
But  such  a  questioner  should  define  what  he  means 
by  "  honest."  There  is  an  honesty  that  is  partial, 
in  the  sense  of  seeing  only  a  part  of  what  is  in- 
volved; an  honesty  also  that  is  narrow,  taking  ac- 
count only  of  man's  duty  to  man  as  described  in 
some  parts  of  the  Bible;  an  honesty  that  prides 
itself  on  taking  great  pains  to  know  what  scholars 
eminent  in  science  or  philosophy  think  of  the  Bible, 
while  overlooking  what  God  himself  has  said  about 
it;  an  honesty  that  claims  it  only  fair  to  take  up 
and  examine  all  objections  before  making  a  decision 
— much  as  if  a  man  in  search  of  a  drink  of  water  to 
allay  his  thirst  should  think  it  only  fair  first  to  taste 
of  every  liquid  on  the  shelves  of  the  apothecary  to 
be  sure  it  was  not  water  before  drinking  from  the 
glass  in  his  hand.    There  is  always,  on  all  subjects, 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY      23 

a  right  way  to  seek  the  right.  Intellectual  honesty 
is  needful,  but  not  that  alone.  Moral  honesty  is 
even  more  essential  in  a  moral  matter  like  the  truth 
about  the  Bible.  Said  a  man  to  his  friend,  who 
pleaded  honest  search  and  failure  to  find,  "If  you 
are  thoroughly  honest  in  this  search,  you  will  pray 
to  the  God  whose  existence  you  own.  You  ask  me 
honestly  for  help.  Now  ask  God  as  honestly.  If 
you  will  not  pray,  I  cannot  concede  your  moral 
honesty  in  this  search."  He  was  right  in  the  de- 
mand. No  man  can  truly  apprehend  the  biblical 
religion  apart  from  his  own  moral  nature.  Reason 
is  not  all.  Soul  is  of  at  least  equal  authority,  and 
must  have  its  place  in  any  thorough-going  honesty 
as  to  the  Bible.  And  this  honesty  means  also,  that 
as  far  as  a  man  gets  light,  he  shall  practise  this 
Bible  in  its  nearest  commands.  So  that  when  head 
and  heart  and  life  work  together,  this  man  comes 
within  the  sphere  of  promise  that  "  wisdom  shall  be 
given  liberally." 

The  Bible,  then,  is  not  a  book  so  coming  to  us 
that  no  man  can  possibly  make  mistake  about  its 
divine  source ;  nor  are  there  as  many  million  mir- 
acles as  there  are  readers,  thus  securing  each  of 
them  from  possible  mistake,  in  that  way  securing 
mathematical  certainty  and  so  perfect  unity  of  be- 
lief. But  the  Bible  is  a  book  that  proposes  ways  of 
gaining  moral  certainty  about  itself  as  a  revelation 
from  God,  by  calling  men  to  honest,  hearty  study  of 
it,  to  earnest  prayer  for  guidance  about  it,  and  to 


24  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

instant  and  constant  obedience  to  duty  as  it  shall 
be  made  known  to  them.  Unnumbered  thousands 
have  done  this,  and  know  that  the  Bible  is  from 
God.  "  If,"  said  Jesus,  "  any  man  willeth  to  do,  he 
shall  know." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  mathematics  appeals 
only  to  one  way  of  ascertainment.  It  has  to  do 
with  the  measuring  of  numbers.  It  concerns  itself 
only  with  quantity,  never  with  quality.  It  cannot 
measure  a  single  quality  of  the  mind  and  soul  of 
man.  It  knows  nothing  of  morals.  Its  only  worth 
in  respect  to  this  matter  now  under  discussion  is 
that  it  supplies  a  mere  "  figure  of  speech  "  to  de- 
scribe "  exactness."  It  appeals  to  one — one  only — 
of  the  original,  instinctive  principles  of  our  human 
constitution — the  principle  of  numbers.  But  the 
Bible  appeals  to  two  of  the  grandest  of  these  orig- 
inal and  instinctive  principles  in  our  human  con- 
stitution. One  of  them  is  the  appeal  to  "  reason  " 
— the  mind  acting  before  the  law  of  "  the  true  or 
false,"  a  law  found  in  itself.  The  other  is  the  ap- 
peal to  the  mind  acting  before  the  law  of  "  the 
right  and  the  wrong,"  a  law  also  found  in  its  own 
self.  And  these  appeals  come  to  any  man  who 
really  wants  to  know.  A  man  cannot  know  more 
than  that  he  knows.  What  is  wanted  is  something 
better  than  any  mathematical  certainty  could  give 
us,  were  such  kind  of  certainty  possible  in  such  a 
matter — viz.,  moral  certainty.  The  angels'  song  at 
Christ's  birth,  according  to  one  translation  of  it, 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MATHEMATICAL  CERTAINTY      2$ 

was  "  Peace  on  earth  to  men  of  good  will."  There 
is  the  peace  of  moral  certainty  for  those  who  will 
take  God's  method  of  gaining  it.  Pascal's  dictum 
still  holds :  "  There  is  light  enough  for  those  who 
wish  to  see ;  none  others  need  ask  for  more." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT 

The  "  scientific  spirit "  is  justly  lauded.  It 
proposes  to  investigate  by  laboratory  methods  all 
matters  with  which  science  has  to  do.  All  things 
must  be  subjected  to  experiment.  Everything  must 
be  proved.  It  takes  as  little  as  possible — some 
would  say  it  takes  nothing — for  granted.  But  not- 
withstanding this  boast,  it  is  obliged  to  take  for 
granted  the  integrity  of  the  eyes  that  watch  the  ex- 
periment, the  reality  of  the  things  examined,  and 
the  normal  condition  of  the  mental  faculties  em- 
ployed in  making  the  analysis  and  in  formulating 
the  results  And  these  things  send  us  back  of  all 
material  science  into  the  realms  of  psychological 
and  philosophical  inquiry.  So  that  the  strictly  sci- 
entific method  is  not  of  universal  application,  nor 
are  its  results  on  matters  outside  of  scientific  ma- 
terial either  basal  or  final.  They  depend  on  things 
about  which  if  there  is  anywhere  an  error,  the 
conclusions  drawn  by  the  scientific  method  must  be 
held  in  suspense.  The  method  has  its  sphere,  and 
within  that  sphere  wonders  have  been  accomplished. 
It  has  made  such  amazing  changes  during  the  cen- 
tury just  closed  that  we  seem  to  be  living  in 
another  world,  so  far  as  physical  comfort  and  con- 
26 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT        27 

venience  are  concerned.  It  has  added  immensely  to 
the  volume  of  human  life,  so  that  we  live  more 
fully,  because  in  touch  with  more  things  in  an  en- 
larged world.  Every  household  in  its  arrangements, 
every  manufactory  in  its  equipment,  every  street  of 
the  city  in  its  engineering,  lighting,  water-supply, 
and  sewer  system,  is  showing  the  advantage  of  the 
application  of  science  to  practical  life.  Surgery 
and  medicine  for  the  sick  and  the  skilful  prepara- 
tion of  foods  for  those  in  health,  furnish  examples 
of  marvelous  progress.  Human  life  is  lengthened 
and  enriched,  and  the  welfare  of  the  human  race 
is  advanced  through  science  pursued  by  modern 
methods. 

What  wonder  then,  that  the  phrase  "  scientific 
method  "  has  come  into  common  use ;  and  that  on 
all  subjects  whatsoever  men  are  asking  for  "  scien- 
tific proof."  If  they  mean  by  it  carefulness  and 
exactness,  search  for  truth  on  any  matter,  patient 
investigation  and  cautiousness  in  drawing  con- 
clusions from  ascertained  facts,  then  the  term  may 
be  employed  rightfully  in  matters  outside  of  strict 
science;  and  laudation  of  the  phrase,  even  in  mor- 
als and  religion,  is  allowable.  We  may  be  asked 
to  use  all  carefulness  of  investigation  concerning 
the  Bible,  its  credibility,  its  integrity,  the  evidence 
that  in  it  God  speaks  as  in  no  other  book.  But 
we  must  remember  that  in  the  realms  of  morals 
and  of  religion,  men  as  keen  as  any  now  living,  did 
some   thinking   before   modern   science   was   born. 


28  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

Trained  in  mathematics,  they  knew  how  to  be  ex- 
act. They  knew  and  used  the  laws  of  evidence ;  and 
those  laws  were  as  well  defined  long  centuries  ago 
as  they  are  to-day.  Not  a  single  proposition  has 
been  added  to  geometry  since  Euclid  lived.  Men 
then  had  not  only  sense,  but  learning.  And  schol- 
ars at  that  time  were  exactly  as  capable  of  judging 
whether  or  not  a  thing  was  proved  as  any  of  us  liv- 
ing to-day.  If  they  did  not  apply  themselves  as 
zealously  to  physical  science  as  do  the  moderns,  it 
was  because  scholarship  used  itself  on  questions 
of  intellectual  and  moral  import. 

The  old  universities  of  Europe  produced  splendid 
scholars  in  the  by-gone  centuries.  And  the  univer- 
sities of  Germany  and  England,  since  the  Reforma- 
tion have  also  done  notable  work  along  the  line  of 
biblical  inquiries.  Historical  investigation  concerning 
the  biblical  writings  was  incessant  and  conclusions 
then  drawn  deserve  attention.  Never  were  the  sacred 
books  more  carefully  scrutinized.  The  old  evidences 
of  biblical  authenticity  which  satisfied  those  schol- 
ars may  be  found  collected  and  restated  in  books 
now  passing  into  antiquity.  Such  collections  made 
by  biblical  scholars  from  the  writings  of  the  Fath- 
ers show  them  anything  but  careless  and  credulous 
men.  If  they  erred  in  any  direction,  it  was — hap- 
pily for  us — in  an  excessive  regard  to  the  skeptical 
moods  of  their  age,  inducing  a  minute  carefulness 
in  examination  of  the  evidence.  Their  scholarship 
was  massive.     For  many  of  them,  students  by  na- 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT        20 

ture,  there  was  little  else  to  be  studied,  and  they 
therefore  gave  themselves  to  the  task  of  biblical 
criticism  with  their  whole  mind  and  soul.  Their 
caution  about  admitting  material  into  the  canon  ex- 
tended to  each  book.  The  whole  matter  of  what  is 
now  called  the  "  higher  criticism  "  was  gone  over 
by  them,  with  perhaps  a  somewhat  different  spirit 
from  that  occasionally  evinced  by  some  modern 
scholars.  They  knew  what  they  were  about.  They 
were  capable  of  judging.  Considering  objections 
and  giving  them  due  weight,  those  scholars  made 
their  decisions.  If  some  few  difficulties  have 
emerged  in  modern  study,  the  great  mass  of  the 
biblical  difficulties  were  the  same  for  them  as  for 
us.  Their  solutions  of  some  of  them  stand  accepted 
by  all  the  scholarship  of  to-day.  If  "  scientific 
method "  means  painstaking  in  investigation  and 
carefulness  in  statement  of  results,  they  used  it. 
They  knew  the  importance  of  the  problem  of  scrip- 
tural certainty.  No  modern  scientist  was  more  de- 
voted to  "  seeking  the  truth  itself  apart  from  all 
consequences  "  than  were  some  of  those  men.  They 
came  to  know  why  they  believed  in  their  Bible. 
The  heroes  of  science  have  deserved  their  renown ; 
but  not  less  renown  is  due  to  the  heroes  who,  in  the 
highest  scholarly  circles  of  the  former  centuries,  de- 
fended their  faith  in  the  sacred  Scriptures  when 
in  daily  peril  of  a  martyr's  death  and  in  daily 
expectation  of  a  martyr's  crown. 

As  to  the  civilization,  culture,  and  scholarship  of 


36  THE   MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

the  times  described  by  the  writers  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, a  great  mistake  has  been  lately  corrected. 
We  have  gained  within  the  last  few  years  new 
knowledge  not  only  of  the  literary,  but  of  the  sci- 
entific achievements  of  the  older  nations.  We  now 
know  as  we  did  not  formerly  that  side  by  side 
with  barbarians  there  were  educated  peoples.  The 
disparaging  words  of  only  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago  about  the  lack  of  civilization  among  the  earlier 
Egyptians  and  Assyrians  and  Hebrews  are  alto- 
gether out  of  date.  Even  their  science  commands 
respect.  And  while  never  making  any  such  swift 
and  even  startling  advance  as  that  seen  in  the  great 
century  just  closed,  those  men  of  the  oldest  nation- 
alities did  some  most  praiseworthy  scientific  work. 
The  Egyptians,  farther  back  than  the  days  of  Mo- 
ses, made  scientific  catalogues  of  the  starry  heavens 
which  are  the  basis  of  those  in  use  to-day.  It  is 
claimed  that  an  astronomy  was  known  which  was 
later  rediscovered,  and  is  now  called  the  Copernican 
system;  that  they  used  the  mariner's  compass,  and 
that  they  doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  The 
great  Pyramid  of  Cheops  is  exactly  oriented,  thus 
showing  knowledge  of  both  astronomic  fact  and 
astronomic  law.  There  is  mathematic  proportion 
of  base  to  height  and  exactness  of  angle  as  well  as 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  mathematical  structure. 

Egyptian  architecture,  to  one  whose  model  is  the 
light  and  delicate  creations  of  Greek  art,  at  first 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT         3I 

seems  clumsy.  But  when  one  gets  fully  on  his  mind 
and  heart  the  Egyptian  idea  of  the  grand,  the  mas- 
sive, the  enduring  as  expressed  in  art,  then  palace, 
temple,  tomb,  and  statue  have  a  grandeur  and  im- 
pressiveness  elsewhere  unsurpassed.  Nothing  is  ever 
careless,  nothing  unfinished  with  respect  to  the 
object  sought.  Its  science  is  shown  not  only  in  the 
selection  of  geologically  substantial  material,  but  in 
a  treatment  that  is  both  architecturally  and  tech- 
nically correct.  These  men  never  heard  our  modern 
phrase  the  "  scientific  method,"  but  they  wrought 
in  its  spirit.  They  rigorously  excluded  the  fan- 
tastic and  frivolous.  Reality  with  them  is  basal. 
Their  Sphinx  looks  calmly  out  upon  all  the  ages 
that  have  been  and  shall  be.  Nowhere  is  any  sug- 
gestion of  the  transient  or  the  accidental.  Tombs 
and  temples  in  their  architecture  speak  to  every 
man  who  beholds  them  of  the  fixed  and  even  of 
the  eternal.  Much  that  is  claimed  for  the  more 
ancient  Egyptians  is  also  claimed  for  their  great 
rivals,  the  Assyrians,  and  for  the  older  nations  in- 
habiting the  lands  between  them  now  known  as 
Palestine.  Situated  between  Egypt  and  Assyria, 
this  central  land  of  Palestine,  through  which  passed 
not  only  the  great  caravans  of  commerce,  but  those 
great  exchanges  of  human  literature  and  of  Ori- 
ental culture,  it  could  not  but  receive  from  both  the 
best  that  each  could  give  of  every  form  of  human 
advancement. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  educational  exactness  re- 


32  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

quired  in  the  arts  and  sciences  must  have  taught 
these  ancient  peoples  carefulness  in  all  other  lines 
of  investigation.  Contemporary  with  the  unearth- 
ing, during  the  last  few  years,  of  very  ancient  tab- 
lets showing  thorough  knowledge  of  the  exact  sci- 
ences of  arithmetic  and  geometry,  are  careful  rec- 
ords of  a  period  not  long  ago  called  prehistoric, 
but  now  admitted  to  be  far  within  the  bounds  of 
veritable  history.  These  show  selections  from  other 
records  which  were  a  part  of  yet  more  ancient  docu- 
ments. There  is  indicated  study  amid  historic  ma- 
terial then  known  as  having  been  gathered  from  a 
remote  antiquity.  Carefulness  and  an  exercised 
and  balanced  judgment  are  shown  as  to  what  to 
select  and  to  preserve.  Documents  made  under 
such  conditions  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  waste 
material  accidentally  accumulating  and  accidentally 
surviving  until  to-day. 

And  because  of  the  exactness  of  scientific  work 
in  parallel  lines,  modern  historians  are  giving  great 
credit  to  these  newly  discovered  historic  documents. 
These  records  have  their  own  peculiarities,  sharply 
distinguishing  them  from  modern  histories.  There 
is  the  characteristic  method  of  "  beginning  again  " 
as  from  a  new  point  of  view,  so  familiar  to  us  in 
the  Hebrew  Pentateuch.  It  is  the  water-mark  of 
those  times.  It  belongs  to  all  Aryan  story.  It  has 
the  exact  flavor  of  Semitic  antiquity.  It  is  atmos- 
phere in  method.  There  is  the  grouping  of  inci- 
dents rather  than  the  orderly  story  of  successive 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT        33 

times.  The  document  is  as  ancient  in  style  as  it  is 
in  matter.  Its  exactness  is  in  its  fidelity  to  fact. 
And  for  these  very  reasons  it  is  trustworthy.  One 
must  not  ask  for  modern  scientific  method,  but 
only  for  the  ancient  scientific  spirit  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  older  books  of  the  Bible.  In  either 
case  what  is  required  is  historic  carefulness  in 
selection  and  in  composition. 

And  the  same  is  to  be  said  about  the  references 
to  the  recognized  geographical  and  geological 
knowledge  of  those  times,  and  to  the  general  nat- 
uralistic beliefs  of  the  ages  in  which  the  ancient 
biblical  writings  were  produced.  All  such  allusions 
are  incidental.  They  occur  not  in  a  treatise  on 
geography  or  geology,  but  in  a  treatise  on  religion. 
When  some  terms  must  be  used  to  describe  natural 
phenomena,  those  in  popular  use  had  to  be  em- 
ployed. There  were  no  others  known.  The  mod- 
ern terms  would  have  been  misunderstood.  Such 
references  to  current  conceptions  were  necessary. 
And  they  abate  not  one  jot  in  the  value  of  a  book, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  teach  religious  truth. 
To  regard  such  usage  as  due  to  mistake,  ignorance, 
or  lack  of  divine  guidance  is  absurd.  Such  usage 
is  rather  an  indication  of  exactly  the  opposite  of 
any  error.  It  shows  the  age  of  the  writer  to  be 
that  which  he  claims  for  his  record.  And  hundreds 
of  the  allusions  to  places,  rulers,  customs,  and  to 
sacred  and  secular  observances  in  Egypt,  Assyria, 
and  Palestine  show  how  certainly  the  biblical  story 
c 


34  THE   MATURE   MAN  S  DIFFICULTIES 

is  concerned  with  the  actual  scenes  of  Oriental  life. 
They  are  indications,  not  of  carelessness,  but  of 
exactness ;  not  of  errancy,  but  of  inerrancy.  Sci- 
entific method  and  nomenclature  may  be  expected 
to  differ  widely. in  the  different  periods  of  human 
history. 

And  new  discovery  has  begotten  new  faith.  Care- 
ful methods  of  study  amid  the  more  ancient  material 
have  induced  new  belief  in  their  historic  verity. 
Half  a  century  ago  historic  doubt  was  in  the  as- 
cendency. It  was  intimated  that  antiquity  held  in 
solution  a  vast  mass  of  protoplastic  material  with- 
out form  and  void;  that  any  date,  even  as  recent 
as  the  founding  of  Rome,  was  so  uncertain,  and  that 
all  was  so  indistinct  and  unrelated  as  to  be  of  no 
actual  worth.  The  Niebuhr  theory  of  discrediting 
all  antiquity  as  of  no  recognizable  significance  has 
now  gone  by.  In  its  place  another  theory  obtained 
a  temporary  credence.  It  found  in  the  protoplasm 
a  little  trace  of  life;  under  the  myth  an  element 
of  possible  fact  which  had  given  rise  to  the  myth. 
It  sought  to  detect  a  substratum.  It  had  much  to 
say  of  "  idealized  history."  The  story  of  Romulus 
and  Remus  in  Roman  history,  while  largely  mythic- 
al, was  held  to  be  probably  the  poetic  presentation 
of  some  dimly  known  occurrence.  A  shred  of  truth 
might  be  detected  by  sharp  eyes  even  in  the  ancient 
legends.  Myth  was  everywhere  the  precursor  of 
genuine  history.  Truth  was  described  as  slowly 
evolving  from  fable.     Even  the  most  ancient  bibli- 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT        35 

cal  stories,  it  was  held,  might  have  behind  them 
some  slender  basis  of  fact.  Abraham  might  pos- 
sibly, have  been  a  real  man,  rather  than  the  ideal 
creation  of  some  Hebrew  romancer  intent  on  ex- 
alting his  nation  by  claiming  an  illustrious  ancestry. 
It  was  argued  that  "  the  moral  worth  "  would  be 
the  same  in  furnishing  us  with  a  noble  lesson, 
whether  those  Hebrew  worthies  had  a  real  or  only 
a  fictitious  existence;  that  they  had  on  still,  in  the 
biblical  story,  the  grave-clothes  which  showed  their 
resurrection,  and  that  these  mythical  garments  were 
to  be  stripped  off  and  the  man  "  loosed  and  let  go  " 
by  our  modern  hands.  This  theory  afforded  a  fine 
field  for  a  continuous  ingenuity.  Just  how  much 
was  myth  and  how  much  was  fact  was  always  the 
question.  Personal  equation  had  full  play  in  de- 
ciding what  to  retain,  and  no  two  men  could  agree 
on  the  substratum  to  be  accepted.  This  theory  in 
some  respects  was  an  advance  on  that  which  it 
superseded ;  but  in  it  there  was  little,  if  any,  gain 
for  those  in  quest  of  historic  certainty. 

But  when  a  few  years  ago  a  discovery  was  made 
which  pushed  back  reliable  history  two  thousand 
years  and  gave  us  historic  tablets  of  unquestioned 
genuineness  far  older  than  the  days  of  Moses,  the 
whole  idea  of  myth  as  related  to  history  was  com- 
pletely changed.  Both  the  above-named  theories 
must  now  be  abandoned,  for  two  things  were  ab- 
solutely established :  They  were,  first,  the  reality  of 
ancient  historic  writing ;  and  secondly,  the  fact  that 


36  THE   MATURE   Man's  DIFFICULTIES 

myth  and  history  had  had  parallel  existence  through 
the  ages.  It  is  this  latter  fact  that  has  overthrown 
the  Niebuhr  theory  of  protoplastic  and  unreliable 
material,  and  equally  the  theory  of  the  derivation 
of  historic  fact  from  mythical  conception.  Neither 
myth  nor  fact  was  parent  of  the  other.  Both  are 
now  seen  as  existing  at  the  same  period  of  time. 
History  and  myth,  like  truth  and  error,  like  right 
and  wrong,  have  been  parallel  facts.  They  are 
two  streams,  each  flowing  in  its  own  channel.  Ex- 
actly as  we  see  to-day  the  ever-enduring  antago- 
nism, so  it  always  has  been  through  the  ages.  He 
who  writes  the  history  of  our  twentieth  century  will 
have  to  record  the  parallel  existence  of  strong  con- 
trasts. Never  was  there  nobler  statesmanship, 
never  more  demagogism ;  never  in  medicine  such 
knowledge,  never  such  charlatanism;  never  such 
pursuit  of  truth,  never  such  prevalence  of  error; 
never  purer  morals ;  but  what  other  age  has  seen 
the  filthiness  of  Mormonism  exalted  to  a  religion 
and  the  ridiculous  metaphysics  of  Christian  Science 
accepted  by  intelligent  men? 

And  the  historian  of  the  present  age  will  need 
the  "scientific  spirit"  in  order  to  distinguish  be- 
tween these  opposites  which  exist  side  by  side.  In 
like  manner  the  myths  and  the  historic  facts  of  the 
olden  time  have  their  parallel.  Historic  material 
there  is;  and  likewise  there  is  mythical  material. 
And  the  historic  method  has  its  historic  tests  which 
are  as  accurate  in  securing  results  as  those  of  sci- 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT         37 

ence  in  the  strictly  scientific  sphere.  Accuracy  in  in- 
vestigation and  reliability  in  result  are  the  things 
desired  alike  in  science,  in  history,  and  in  religion. 
Our  theories  are  gaining,  slowly  it  may  be,  but 
really,  their  recognition  and  significance.  The 
events  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  history  which  it  is 
claimed  in  the  Scriptures  Moses  was  commanded 
to  "  write  in  a  book,"  were  of  worth  not  only  for 
those  then  living,  but  for  all  the  ages  to  come.  The 
record  of  them  could  have  been  written  in  that  age, 
and  would  have  been  written;  and  once  written, 
among  such  a  people  the  records  could  and  would 
have  been  preserved.  Separated  from  contempo- 
raneous moral  error,  sanctified  by  the  belief  of  that 
people  in  the  one  holy  God,  who  would  not  tolerate 
any  iniquity,  historic  documents  were  produced  to 
which  ever  after  there  was  to  be  appeal.  The 
ancient  facts  were  interwoven  with  song,  were  re- 
hearsed in  subsequent  story,  perpetuated  in  signifi- 
cant rite,  reviewed,  restated,  and  made  the  basis  of 
appeal  in  their  discourse,  and  were  the  foundation 
on  which  prophetic  utterance  was  based  by  their 
national  seers.  Psalmist  and  annalist  embalmed  in 
verse  and  in  narration  the  great  things  God  had 
done.  We  can  imagine  no  better  way  for  the  his- 
toric preservation  of  the  story  of  such  occurrences 
than  that  adopted  in  the  Bible. 

There  is  also  another  element  which  the  genuine 
"  scientific  spirit "  cannot  afford  to  neglect.  It  is 
the  claim  of  a  special  divine  inspiration.     If  the 


38  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

Book  is  in  some  things  like  other  books,  and  its 
accuracy  is  in  those  respects  to  be  treated  exactly 
as  are  other  books,  it  is  in  some  other  respects  ex- 
actly unlike  any  other  book;  and  so  in  regard  to 
these  peculiarities,  it  is  to  be  especially  tested. 
There  are  some  things  that  can  be  described  rather 
than  defined.  Inspiration  is  one  of  them.  The 
divine  inspiration  can  be  no  more  defined  than  can 
the  divine  existence.  And  even  in  description  we 
can  but  approximate.  Hence,  no  one  theory  of  in- 
spiration is  exhaustive.  Each  of  the  many  proposed 
has,  it  may  be,  its  one  element  of  truth.  We  may — 
for  the  single  purpose  now  had  in  view — describe  it 
from  the  view-point  of  our  human  need  of  it.  We 
may  say  that  what  we  need  is  a  divine  assurance 
of  moral  certainty  in  the  teaching  of  moral  and 
religious  truth.  Seen  from  the  point  of  our  human 
need,  we  may  expect  ( 1 )  the  inspiration  of  the 
facts,  (2)  of  the  providential  arrangements,  (3)  of 
the  human  thought,  (4)  of  the  human  language. 

1.  Historic  fact  is  the  basis  of  all.  These  things 
did  or  did  not  occur;  they  are  facts  or  fictions. 
The  claim  is  that  the  facts — omitting  now  the  fur- 
ther question  of  the  possible  inspiration  of  the  rec- 
ord of  them — that  the  facts  themselves  were  in- 
spired. There  was  nothing  accidental  or  incidental 
or  uncaused.  God  was  concerned  in  them.  All 
apart  from  man,  some  of  them  took  place.  True, 
there  is  a  stricter  sense  in  which  men  only  are  capa- 
ble of  the  higher  form  of  inspiration.     But  in  the 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT         39 

broader  sense  events  used  for  moral  purposes  may 
be  spoken  of  as  inspired.  The  Spirit  of  God  is 
represented  as  breathing  on  the  face  of  the  waters, 
and  also  as  breathing  the  moral  soul  into  the  body 
of  man  in  Eden.  The  physical  is  more  than  the 
physical,  because  of  something  behind  it,  without 
which  it  could  have  neither  existence  nor  meaning. 
"  In  the  beginning,  God  " — and  therefore  ever  after, 
God.  And  because  of  this  original  and  fundamental 
fact  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  physical  events 
starting  at  creation  and  continuing  in  all  the  divine 
evolution,  there  is  an  inspiration  of  things.  And  the 
writers  of  the  Scriptures,  having  once  struck  this 
key-note,  never  flat  from  it  in  all  their  symphony. 
They  make  actual  events  to  be  the  foundation  of 
everything  in  religion. 

And  it  is  the  same  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
speeches  of  Stephen  and  Peter  and  Paul,  as  given  in 
the  Acts,  have  the  same  note — great  care  for  the 
basal  facts.  They  recite  the  Old  Testament  events. 
They  add  thereto  the  new  events  of  their  new  evan- 
gel. So  absorbed  did  one  of  them  become  in  the 
new  facts  that  he  speaks  of  them  as  "  my  gospel." 
The  evangelists  in  their  narratives  seldom  offer  ex- 
planatory comment.  They  hold  themselves  rigor- 
ously to  the  facts.  The  apostles  are  one  with  the 
evangelists  in  this  characteristic — their  regard  for 
actual  occurrences.  They  claim  to  know  that  in 
former  times  as  well  as  in  their  own,  "  some  had 
followed  cunningly  devised  fables."     But  they  as- 


40  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

sert  that  they  themselves  had  always  insisted  on 
proven  fact.  When  they  spoke  they  were  not  the 
men  to  grace  their  speech  with  popular  fable.  They 
not  only  denounced  legend  and  myth  as  believed 
by  others,  but  they  asserted  and  then  emphasized 
actuality  as  connected  with  Jesus  Christ.  They  see 
Old  Testament  events,  from  creation  on,  as  God's 
partial  revelation  of  himself;  and  the  new  gospel 
as  the  more  complete  manifestation  of  the  same 
God.  All  things  had  been  directed  and  dominated 
from  first  to  last  in  nature  and  in  history  so  as  to 
show  God  in  self -manifestation.  And  when  this  is 
recognized  as  the  object  of  the  Bible,  a  whole  class 
of  difficulties  raised  by  the  mistaken  view  that  the 
Bible  is  intended  mainly  as  a  history  of  the  moral 
evolution  of  humanity  vanishes  at  once. 

2.  We  must  also  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  the 
biblical  story  is  written  under  the  idea  of  an  inspired 
arrangement  in  human  affairs.  No  one  thing  is  to 
be  judged  of  as  occurring  alone.  It  is  merely  an 
item  in  a  connected  series.  Separately  viewed,  a 
thing  may  seem  contrary  to  all  our  ordinary  ideas 
of  morals.  It  is  the  backward  thrust  of  the  piston. 
But  the  backward  thrust,  by  the  wise  combinations 
in  the  mechanism  of  the  engine,  is  just  as  helpful 
in  propulsion  as  is  the  forward  thrust.  God  is  the 
great  factor  in  Scripture  story.  His  plan  is  a  series 
of  events  under  one  perpetual  superintendence. 
That  early  going  down  into  Egypt  was,  when  seen 
alone,  a  backward  step,  but  as  seen  historically  to- 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT         4I 

day,  it  was  a  splendid  move  alike  for  Egypt  and 
Israel.  That  captivity  at  Babylon  helped  the  whole 
theistic  idea  into  world-wide  prominence.  It 
teaches  yet.  As  with  the  larger,  so  with  the  smaller 
steps.  As  with  nations,  so  with  individuals.  God 
has  always  wrought  out  his  plans  by  great  men. 
They  were  "  raised  up  for  this  purpose."  They 
were  precursors  of  the  One  who  was  to  assemble 
in  himself  all  those  separate  virtues  that  each  of 
these  great  souls  had  exhibited  in  the  centuries  of 
divinely  guided  history.  In  that  grand  roll  of  he- 
roes, recorded  in  the  eleventh  of  Hebrews,  we  get 
a  glimpse  of  their  progressive  faith  corresponding 
to  the  progressive  revelation  of  God.  History  has  a 
divine  meaning.  We  see  its  mountain-tops.  Those 
biblical  men  caught  the  first  rays  of  the  morning 
sun.  They  threw  the  light  they  received  over  the 
plains  on  which  other  men  lived,  and  these  in  turn 
rejoiced  in  its  beams.  The  great  events  had  their 
mission,  and  the  great  souls  were  God's  ministers 
for  the  good  of  mankind. 

One  of  the  books  of  the  Bible  shows  us  a  brave 
soul  that  has  lost  for  a  brief  time  this  recognition 
of  God's  unslumbering  care  over  the  events  of  life. 
The  book  of  Job  may  be  dramatic  in  form,  but  it 
tells  the  story  of  a  real  life  that  has  had  a  thousand 
counterparts.  A  good  man  is  overwhelmed  by  a 
series  of  afflictions.  Property  goes,  children  die, 
wife  reproaches,  and  false  friends  wrongly  inter- 
pret these  events.     They  insist  that  he  must  have 


42  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

committed  some  great  crime,  or  God  would  not  so 
have  afflicted  him.  Health  fails  and  the  mind  itself 
reels  under  the  strain.  Satanic  power  adds  to  the 
intensity  of  the  trial  by  suggesting  that  all  his  sor- 
rows are  wrongfully  sent,  and  intimates  an  impeach- 
ment of  the  divine  goodness  or  of  the  divine  power. 
But  the  soul  rights  itself  by  insisting  with  itself 
that  God  must  be  right.  That  one  thought  saves 
faith  from  utter  wreck.  God  may  be  but  testing 
him.  And  now  both  feet  are  upon  the  rock.  The 
idea  of  God  as  dealing  with  him  is  this  man's  sal- 
vation. And  the  story,  in  this  grandly  dramatic 
form,  is  set  forth  for  the  instruction  of  men  in  all 
ages.  Providence  is  shown  in  the  management  of 
evil  as  well  as  of  good ;  in  both  physical  and  moral 
calamity,  as  well  as  in  the  resulting  righteousness 
of  a  man  sorely  tempted,  but  not  overthrown.  It 
may  even  be  said  of  him  that  he  is  splendidly 
victorious  through  his  faith  in  God. 

And  here  as  everywhere  else  there  is  the  presen- 
tation of  a  divine  providence  that  is  always  univer- 
sal because  always  special.  Everywhere  there  is 
method.  But  method  shows  mind.  And  if  as 
some  one  has  said  "  science  is  the  orderly  product  of 
methodized  inquiry,"  then  we  have  in  the  book  of 
Job  an  instance  of  moral  inquiry  carefully  con- 
ducted to  an  orderly  result  in  the  vindication  not 
only  of  the  righteous  character  of  the  man,  but  of 
his  God.  Similarly  the  whole  volume,  when  its  de- 
tails are  examined  and  its  incidents  seen,  becomes 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT         43 

luminous  not  only  in  its  inspired  events,  but  in  its 
inspired  orderliness  as  it  sets  forth  the  progressive 
self -revelation  of  God  as  a  theme  for  the  devout 
study  of  men  "  the  world  around  and  the  centuries 
through." 

3.  There  is  also  the  inspiration  of  human 
thought  by  the  divine  thought.  Mind  everywhere 
among  men  affects  men  in  inspirational  ways.  Then 
there  must  be  the  parallel  fact  that  the  divine  mind 
can  affect  the  human  mind  in  inspirational  ways, 
and  while  leaving  the  human  mind  in  its  voluntary 
and  personal  integrity,  can  secure  for  its  action  di- 
vine guidance  and  suggestion.  A  distinguished 
teacher  in  a  foremost  theological  seminary  said  to 
his  class :  "  None  of  us  know  the  consciousness  of 
having  had  a  divine  inspiration  revealing  new  truth 
for  the  world."  Asked  if  he  did  not  believe  that  "  all 
Christians  had  a  degree  of  the  same  inspiration  in 
the  gift  of  the  same  Holy  Spirit,"  the  quick  reply 
was  that  it  is  not  a  question  of  degree  at  all,  but  a 
question  of  the  kind  of  divine  working ;  that  because 
the  Holy  Spirit  illuminated  the  minds  and  sanctified 
the  souls  of  all  true  Christians,  it  did  not  follow 
that  a  widely  different  form  of  spiritual  influence 
might  not  be  exercised  on  some  Christians ;  that  the 
inspiration  to  understand  a  Scripture  already  made 
was  by  no  means  the  same  sort  of  thing  as  an  in- 
spiration to  make  new  Scripture ;  that  there  were 
"  diversities  of  gifts,  but  the  same  Spirit."  And 
when  the  further  question  was  pressed,  whether  the 


44  THE   MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

professor  did  not  believe  that  "  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
given  to  all  men,"  the  quick  answer  was  returned 
that  a  visitor  coming  to  the  door  was  not  always 
admitted  to  the  home  and  made  a  member  of  the 
family;  that  we  must  not  confound  the  natural 
working  of  the  moral  nature  in  all  men  with  pe- 
culiar gifts  and  graces  of  the  Holy  Spirit  granted 
to  Christian  souls  for  some  special  purpose. 

The  answers  to  the  questionings  of  the  class  may 
have  been  correct,  and  yet  we  do  seem  to  get  some- 
what nearer  to  apprehending  the  peculiar  influence 
that  must  have  come  to  the  biblical  writers  when 
we  ourselves  feel  spiritually  stimulated  by  some  bib- 
lical truth  that  comes  home  to  our  deepest  nature. 
We  know  in  such  moments  what  it  is  to  have  some 
wide  moral  vista  opened  to  us ;  to  have  the  deepest, 
holiest  feelings  in  us  stirred  into  unwonted  activity 
and  the  will  made  forceful  in  its  decisions  for  right 
moral  action.  We  are  certain  that  the  operation 
within  is  induced  by  the  same  Holy  Spirit  that  gave 
us  the  particular  page  we  hold  in  our  hands.  And 
as  under  the  printing-press,  the  paper  takes  the  ex- 
act impression  of  the  type,  so  the  prepared  soul 
takes  the  special  and  corresponding  stamp  of  the 
biblical  page.  We  are  then  permitted  to  read  the 
truth  that  moves  us  from  the  page  within  or  from 
the  page  without.  "  The  Spirit  beareth  witness." 
This,  at  the  very  least,  is  true;  that  such  inward 
impression  shows  that  the  human  heart  is  inspirable 
for  the   reception   of  a   divine   revelation   and   its 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT        4.5 

corresponding  actuality  in  the  inspiration  of  the 
Bible. 

The  inspiration  of  men  by  men — of  one  man's 
thought  by  another  man's  thought — is  a  recognized 
fact.  The  great  masters  of  thought  impress  them- 
selves by  spoken  or  written  words  on  thousands  of 
their  fellow-men.  They  stir  others  to  think.  Genius 
makes  its  appeal  and  gets  its  response.  In  philos- 
ophy what  long  centuries  have  been  influenced  by 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  These  men  still  rule  us  from 
their  urns.  The  successive  generations  feel  the 
spell  of  the  great  poets,  and  Homer  and  Virgil, 
Dante  and  Milton,  have  more  power  over  their 
larger  audience  with  the  increasing  years  of  the 
world's  history.  Orators  long  since  dead  still  speak 
to  the  world.  Statesmen  long  since  passed  away  an- 
nounced principles  that  still  lead  nations.  To-day 
the  whole  vast  and  various  world  of  mind  vibrates 
anew  whenever  some  gifted  man  touches  the  chords 
that  are  waiting  to  break  into  music  in  every  human 
heart.  If  men  thus  endowed  may  be  expected  to 
move  men,  surely  the  expectation  is  warranted  that 
God  will  do  it.  If  the  thought  of  man  can  give  us 
human  inspiration,  then  we  may  expect  the  thought 
of  God  to  give  us  divine  inspiration. 

And  that  he  should  so  move  some  men  rather 
than  others  is  no  more  strange  than  that  he  should 
endow  some  men  with  health  denied  to  their  fel- 
lows. Men  come  into  the  world  with  widely  unlike 
spiritual  capabilities.     Some  have  the  stronger  con- 


46  THE   MATURE   MAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 

science  and  some  the  more  loving  heart.  Religious 
susceptibility  is  not  equally  bestowed.  Capacity  to 
receive  inspiration  is  widely  various,  as  is  capacity 
to  interpret  the  inspiration  which  God  has  given  to 
selected  souls.  That  God  should  have  taken  the 
Hebrew  people,  the  foremost  monotheistic  believers 
of  the  world,  and  to  special  souls  among  them  have 
given  special  revelation  as  to  the  meaning  of  his- 
toric events,  special  revelation  also  of  moral  truth 
that  the  whole  world  needed  to  know,  and  then 
should  have  given  also  special  inspiration  to  record 
these  events  and  these  revelations  is  what  we  might 
expect,  and  is  just  what  we  find.  It  is  mind  moving 
upon  minds.  In  the  case  of  the  inspiration  of  men 
by  a  man  of  genius  in  art,  philosophy,  poetry,  and 
music,  the  personality  of  those  thus  moved  is  not  in- 
vaded. When  Moses  and  David  and  Isaiah,  when 
Matthew  and  Paul,  receive  the  divine  inspiration,  it 
no  more  changes  their  mental  characteristics  than 
the  features  of  their  faces.  They  have  their  own 
way  of  stating  their  own  divinely  inspired  thought. 
If  they  are  historians,  they  can  make  use  of  their 
diligence  in  historic  study  and  their  judgment  as  to 
historic  conclusions,  and  yet  do  it  all  under  the 
guidance  of  God's  Spirit.  If  poets  and  prophets, 
there  is  the  use  of  their  natural  ability  to  see  and 
foresee  and  to  feel  the  poetic  and  prophetic  af- 
flatus. It  is  not  a  case  in  which  God  uses  his  al- 
mightiness,  crushing  individuality  and  acting  as  on 
brute  matter.     It  is  divine  thought  operating  on 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT        47 

human  thought,  in  the  realm  of  mind.  And  it  is 
only  natural  for  us  to  believe  that  supernatural 
thought  should  under  such  circumstances  and  with 
such  an  end  in  view,  influence  natural  thought,  not 
by  compulsion,  but  by  inspiration  Man  is  certainly 
inspirable. 

4.  When  we  come  to  consider  the  words  in 
which  this  inspiration  of  the  Bible  is  expressed,  we 
find  certain  difficulties.  Fifty  years  ago  revelation, 
which  is  the  disclosure  in  any  way  of  God's  thought, 
and  inspiration  which  concerns  the  record  of  these 
revelations,  were  often  confused,  and  even  con- 
founded. And  the  main  question  was  about  the 
words  rather  than  about  the  more  vital  things  be- 
hind the  words.  The  doctrine  of  the  divine  imma- 
nence, always  held  indeed,  had  not  been  duly  em- 
phasized. The  transcendence,  i.  e.,  God  over  all 
things  and  events,  had  obscured  the  conception  of 
the  immanence,  i.  e.,  God  in  all  things  and  events. 
Instead  of  the  mechanical,  the  more  vital  concep- 
tion of  God's  relation  to  the  whole  world,  including 
both  its  physical  and  mental  departments,  is  now  get- 
ting recognition.  God  is  held  to  be  in  art,  in  sci- 
ence, in  history,  and  in  literature.  If  so,  what 
should  forbid  us  to  hold  that  in  some  peculiar  and 
especial  way  he  may  be  in  some  special  literature? 
And  literature  is  defined  as  "  the  spoken  or  written 
production  of  the  human  mind."  No  man  can  think 
aside  from  words.  And  to  exclude  God  altogether 
from  words  is  to  deny  his  immanence.     To  allow 


4»  THE   MATURE   MAN  S  DIFFICULTIES 

him  any  especial  place  in  any  special  literature  is  to 
accept  the  accuracy  of  the  words  for  the  end 
intended  in  that  literature. 

The  thing — let  it  be  remembered — for  which  we 
are  here  and  now  contending  is  accuracy  in  the 
teaching  of  moral  fact  and  truth  in  the  Bible.  God 
over  all,  he  is  God  in  all.  This  immanent  God 
may  be  conceived  of  as  concerned  in  one  way  in 
good,  and  in  an  exactly  opposite  way  in  evil.  One 
has  his  approval,  the  other  his  abhorrence.  And 
from  this  difference  in  moral  estimate  and  working 
we  may  argue  that  his  relation  to  a  special  man's 
act  in  writing  a  given  biblical  book  may  be  that  of 
a  direct  divine  inspiration.  To  allow  this  immanent 
God  any  especial  place  in  such  a  book  as  the  Bible 
is  to  find  room  also  for  him  to  use  the  kind  and 
degree  of  divine  influence  that  is  required.  For 
securing  that  accuracy,  the  need  of  which  is  the 
one  great  thing  demanded,  the  inspiration  of  an  eye- 
witness to  an  event  is  obviously  unlike  that  required 
in  the  case  of  a  prophet  foretelling  a  future  occur- 
rence. The  form,  kind,  and  degree  of  the  inspira- 
tion needed  in  the  varieties  of  biblical  literature  is 
what  makes  any  exact  definition  so  difficult.  But 
all  the  difficulty  is  precisely  where  it  should  be,  and 
where  we  can  see  only  this,  that  the  divine  supply 
is  suiting  itself  to  the  widely  varying  demands  of 
our  varying  human  need.  And  the  scientific  spirit, 
seeking  exactness  in  the  record  of  the  revelations 
about  God,  can  find  its  culminating  exercise  only 


THE    BIBLE    AND    THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT        49 

in  the  moral  and  religious  teaching  that  is  specially 
directed  and  governed  or — to  use  another  word — 
is  inspired  by  God  himself.  It  is  one  essential  law 
of  scientific  research  that  it  must  take  into  account 
all  the  facts  at  a  fair  estimation.  In  this  matter  of 
biblical  study  the  Bible  is  not  only  to  be  considered 
as  so  much  literature  to  be  judged  by  the  common 
rules  of  literary  production,  but  also  as  a  volume 
with  peculiar  claims  that  must  have  special  con- 
sideration. If  "  scientific  method  "  means  careful- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  Inspirer  in  communicating 
his  divine  thought,  and  carefulness  also  on  the  part 
of  those  inspired  to  give  the  record  of  these  things 
to  the  world,  then  there  is  to  be  on  the  part  of  those 
who  study  the  volume  exceeding  diligence  in  ascer- 
taining its  exact  meaning,  and  absolute  honesty  both 
of  mind  and  heart  in  accepting  its  decisions  about 
moral  truth. 

Sometimes  it  takes  not  a  little  moral  courage — a 
courage  that  only  accumulating  years  of  biblical 
study  can  secure  for  us — to  be  willing  to  let  the 
Bible  speak  out  for  itself;  to  submit  our  own  opin- 
ions to  it  as  the  ultimate  authority. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    BIBLE   AND   THE    HISTORIC    SPIRIT 

A  singularly  unfortunate  way  of  speaking 
about  the  historic  narratives  of  the  Bible  has  lately 
come  into  vogue  among  some  good  men.  It  is  said, 
"  Let  us  be  thankful  that  our  personal  religious  life 
does  not  depend  upon  any  outward  facts,  since  it  is 
always  hard  to  establish  such  facts  historically." 

But  is  it  always  so  very  hard  to  establish  historic 
facts?  If  it  is  so,  then  they  must  be  accepted  al- 
ways with  considerable  doubt ;  and  human  progress, 
since  it  builds  itself  upon  past  accomplishments  as 
the  basis  of  future  successes,  must  be  immensely 
retarded.  The  truth  is  that  the  spirit  of  doubt  has 
been  evoked  in  many  departments  of  human  think- 
ing by  unwise  methods  of  investigation.  To  begin 
with  universal  doubt  is  to  end  in  universal  negation. 
Doubt  never  has  advanced  truth.  All  progress  is 
gained  by  believing  that  something  can  be  known. 
We  are  made  up  so  as  to  be  able  to  believe.  And 
in  historic  investigation  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
"  the  will  to  believe,"  over  against  "  the  will  to 
doubt."  It  is  true  that  certain  scholars  by  negative 
methods  have  attempted  to  infuse  doubt  as  an  ele- 
ment to  be  necessarily  cherished  alike  in  sacred  and 
in  secular  history. 
5° 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  HISTORIC  SPIRIT  5 1 

But  it  can  be  claimed  that  whatever  may  be  true 
elsewhere,  historic  faith  is  warranted  in  biblical 
facts,  since  they  make  a  double  appeal  and  offer  a 
twofold  line  of  proof.  They  are  for  the  head,  and 
equally,  for  the  heart.  There  is  a  moral  as  well  as  a 
historical  aspect  in  which  they  are  to  be  considered, 
and  so  least  of  all  events  are  they  to  be  approached 
in  the  spirit  of  doubt.  Because  the  Scriptures  make 
very  much  of  historic  facts,  founding  indeed,  in  one 
way  of  considering  the  matter,  their  whole  claim 
upon  them,  the  great  Author  of  the  Volume  has 
been  at  the  utmost  pains  to  submit  to  the  world  the 
best  forms  of  proof  that  the  human  reason  could 
demand.  And  the  historic  skepticism  about  the  re- 
liability not  only  of  biblical,  but  of  all  historic  facts 
of  any  considerable  antiquity,  appears  to  be  unwar- 
ranted when  the  evidence  for  biblical  correctness, 
and  so  of  the  related  events,  is  carefully  consid- 
ered. And  it  will  be  seen  that  these  historic  facts 
are  the  most  certain  of  proof  of  any  class  of  facts 
with  which  we  have  to  do. 

A  small  portion  of  the  sacred  Scriptures  is  to  be 
considered  in  this  discussion — the  historicity  of  Je- 
sus Christ.  But  his  historicity,  once  established,  car- 
ries with  it  immense  implications  as  to  those  other 
historic  facts  of  which  it  is  the  crowning  event. 

The  appeal  is,  first,  to  documentary,  and  then  to 
experiential  evidence. 

I.  Documentary  evidence.     The  more  usual  way 


52  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

of  presenting  this  form  of  proof  is  by  asking  about 
the  historicity  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
their  dates,  and  the  circumstances  under  which  they 
were  written. 

But  another  line  of  proof  is  to  be  followed  here 
and  now.  Suppose  we  start  with  the  immediate 
centuries  after  Christ's  death.  We  will  ask  first, 
what  we  know,  apart  from  any  biblical  testimony, 
about  Jesus  Christ.  Just  here  more  doubt  has  been 
expressed  than  anywhere  else.  Says  a  noted  skep- 
tic :  "  The  difficulty  is  not  to  prove  that  Christ  was 
believed  to  be  a  historic  personage  after  the  fourth 
century,  but  to  bridge  over  the  years  between  a.  d. 
i  and  300 — three  centuries."  Suppose,  then,  we 
start  by  closing  for  a  time — a  time  only — our  four 
Gospels,  and  also  by  closing  the  apostolic  books  in 
their  witness  to  the  facts  recorded  in  those  Gospels. 
Perhaps  we  may  come  to  open  them  again,  after  a 
little,  with  increasing  interest.  Let  us  begin  with 
the  apostolic  Fathers,  so  called,  including  the  names 
of  Clement,  Ignatius,  Polycarp,  and  Barnabas. 
They  were  no  fools,  no  hasty  credulous  persons. 
They  had  nothing  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose  but 
their  lives  in  any  assertion  of  their  belief  about 
what  Jesus  taught  and  did  and  was.  What  did 
they  believe  about  the  alleged  Christian  facts  ?  Doc- 
tor Westcott,  in  his  "  Canon  of  the  New  Testa-' 
ment,"  gives  a  careful  and  critical  summary  of 
what  their  writings  show  to  have  been  their  belief. 
He  says: 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  53 

The  gospel  which  the  Fathers  announce  includes  all  the 
articles  of  the  ancient  creeds.  Christ,  we  read,  our  God, 
the  Word,  the  Lord  and  Creator  of  the  world,  who  was 
with  the  Father  before  time  began,  humbled  himself  and 
came  down  from  heaven  and  was  manifested  in  the  flesh 
and  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  of  the  race  of  David 
according  to  the  flesh,  and  a  star  of  exceeding  brightness 
appeared  at  his  birth.  Afterwards  he  was  baptized  of 
John  to  fulfil  all  righteousness,  and  then,  speaking  his 
Father's  message,  he  invited  not  the  righteous,  but  sinners, 
to  come  to  him.  Perfume  was  poured  over  his  head  as 
an  emblem  of  the  immortality  which  he  breathed  on  the 
church.  At  length,  under  Herod  and  Pontius  Pilate,  he 
was  crucified  and  vinegar  and  gall  were  given  him  to 
drink.  But  on  the  first  day  of  the  week  he  rose  from  the 
dead,  the  firstfruits  of  the  grave,  and  many  prophets  were 
raised  by  him  for  whom  they  had  waited.  After  his 
resurrection  he  ate  with  his  disciples.  He  ascended  into 
heaven,  sat  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  and  thence 
he  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead. 

In  this  careful  summary,  by  a  competent  scholar, 
of  the  teaching  of  the  apostolic  Fathers,  notice  ( I ) 
that  these  men  were  the  immediate  friends  and 
pupils  of  the  apostles  themselves.  They  had  taken 
the  gospel  facts  directly  from  the  lips  of  the  apos- 
tles. They  are  reporting  what  they  had  learned  at 
first  hand.  (2)  No  others  living  in  their  day  who 
knew  the  apostles  contradict  the  testimony  of  these 
men  as  to  what  the  apostles  themselves  taught  about 
these  Christian  facts.  (3)  And  these  men  not  only 
testify  to  what  they  themselves  heard  from  the  lips 
of  the  apostles,  but  they  tell  us  what  was  the  uni- 
versal belief  of  Christians  at  that  time  about  these 


54  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

great  cardinal  facts  of  Christ  and  his  religion.  And 
some  of  these  men  in  the  churches  to  whom  they 
wrote  must  also  have  seen  and  heard  the  apostles. 
Any  addition  to  the  original  apostolic  statements 
about  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  essentially 
conflicting  with  the  original  apostolic  statements 
would  have  been  detected  and  widely  published,  and 
the  detection  of  such  divergence  would  not  have 
been  allowed  by  keen  enemies  to  perish  from  the 
world's  literature.  (4)  It  will  be  noticed  that  the 
so-called  "  Apostles'  Creed,"  though  not  written 
until  the  fifth  or  sixth  centuries  after  the  writings  of 
the  apostles  themselves,  in  its  enumeration  of  the 
things  to  be  believed,  uses  language  almost  identical 
with  that  summarized  by  Doctor  Westcott  as  the 
teaching  of  the  original  group  of  the  apostolic 
Fathers.  (5)  This  belief  of  the  Fathers  and  of  the 
Christian  community  is  singularly  full  as  to  the 
two  greatest  of  the  miraculous  events  in  Christ's 
career — his  virgin-birth  and  his  resurrection  and 
ascension.  Lesser  miracles  did  not  need  the  nam- 
ing, since  those  who  held  to  the  greater  would  not 
doubt  the  less  on  any  ground  either  of  impossibility 
or  improbability.  (6)  The  blending  of  doctrinal 
with  historical  fact  in  the  summary  is  noticeable. 
The  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  as  God,  and  equally  the 
belief  in  him  as  man,  is  clearly  taught  by  these 
Fathers.  So  too  is  the  belief  in  the  trend  of  Christ's 
teaching  as  to  the  righteous  and  the  wicked  and  as 
to  the  final  day  of  judgment. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  55 

It  is  obvious  that  in  some  way  thousands  of  men 
came  to  act  as  if  these  things  were  true.  For  them 
so  to  act  was  against  all  their  worldly  interests. 
They  gained  nothing  but  the  prospect  of  a  martyr's 
death  by  such  a  belief.  According  to  all  testimony 
it  made  them  better  men.  Nor  can  one  account  for 
this  result  without  owning  some  such  cause  for  it 
as  that  these  things  appealed  to  them  as  actual  facts. 
Some  of  these  men  could  have  ascertained  the  truth 
about  these  things  from  apostolic  lips.  Many  of 
them  felt  the  moral  power  of  these  facts  in  the  deep- 
est possible  experiences  of  a  human  soul. 

It  would  be  possible  for  us  to  go  onward  from 
this  age  to  those  immediately  succeeding,  and  to 
show  how,  with  some  additions,  the  main  facts  were 
still  held  firmly  by  the  succeeding  Christian  com- 
munities.    But  our  argument  does  not  require  it. 

Let  us  now  go  back  one  step  from  these  apos- 
tolic Fathers.  The  four  Gospels  shall  remain  shut. 
We  will  take  only  the  Epistles.  And  among  the 
Epistles  let  us  take  only  four  out  of  all  those  usually 
ascribed  to  Paul;  and  the  four  shall  be  those  that 
the  most  extreme  criticism  allows  to  be  genuine — 
Romans,  I  and  2  Corinthians,  and  Galatians.  What 
we  have  found  in  the  Fathers  prepares  us  for  what 
we  now  find  in  the  Epistles.  Here  is  no  mythical 
Christ  "  manufactured  in  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries,"  but  a  veritable  historic  person  doctrinally 
described.  The  doctrines  are  embodied  in  the  facts 
and  the  facts  in  the  doctrines.    From  such  a  mind 


56  THE   MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

as  that  of  Paul  we  may  expect  what  we  find,  less 
of  the  alleged  facts  stated  specifically  and  more  of 
the  facts  conceived  in  their  amazing  wholeness. 
He  compasses  the  grand  pantology  of  the  events. 
He  sees  what  they  mean,  and  in  giving  the  mean- 
ing, indorses  the  facts  without  which  such  a  mean- 
ing were  impossible.  There  is  the  grandeur  of 
high  moral  conception  in  his  way  of  treating  them. 
Now  and  then,  to  make  a  special  point,  he  gives 
a  few  words  of  narration.  But  narration  is  neither 
his  forte  nor  his  object.  He  uses  for  spiritual  pur- 
poses the  events  in  the  Christ  life.  Its  revelation 
of  God,  who  had  sent  his  only  begotten  Son,  and 
the  worth  and  blessing  of  this  event  to  men  in  the 
new  relation  established  toward  the  Father  and  the 
moral  power  of  these  divine  unfoldings  as  they  re- 
generate and  sanctify  human  souls — these  are  the 
points  of  view  from  which  he  sees  the  gospel. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  he  is  writing  his  Epis- 
tles to  those  who  have  been  already  made  Christians 
by  this  gospel  of  God's  grace.  They  had  heard 
from  his  lips  or  from  those  who  had  repeated  his 
message  or  that  of  his  brother  apostles,  details  such 
as  were  afterward  set  down  by  the  four  evangelists. 
In  his  reported  speeches  before  hostile  heathen  and 
unbelieving  Jews,  as  reported  in  the  Acts,  he  makes 
all  depend  on  the  historical  events  which  he  cites. 
But  in  these  Epistles — letters  to  brethren  in  Christ — 
he  uses  the  historical  only  by  way  of  enforcing  the 
practical.    He  writes  to  those  already  aware  of  the 


THE   BIBLE  AND   THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  57 

things  on  which  their  new  life  is  based.  There  is 
a  whole  great  implication.  There  is  everywhere  an 
assumption.  The  details  of  Christ's  career  he  cer- 
tainly knew.  He  had  heard  the  outline  from  Ste- 
phen when  he  held  the  garments  of  those  who 
stoned  the  martyr.  At  his  conversion  he  saw  the 
Jesus  who  had  died  and  risen.  At  Jerusalem  he 
had  interviews  day  after  day  with  Peter  and  James, 
and  they  must  have  submitted  to  the  questioning  and 
cross-questioning  which  such  a  man  as  Paul  would 
give  them.  One  can  almost  hear  Paul  as  he  insists 
on  knowing  the  details : 

Are  you  sure  of  this  matter  of  the  descent  from  David? 
Was  Mary  his  mother  in  deed  and  truth?  Were  you 
present  when  he  fed  the  assembled  thousands  and  did  you 
handle  and  eat  the  miraculous  bread?  Did  you  see  and 
know  the  man  Lazarus  and  was  he  really  raised  from  the 
dead  by  Christ's  word  of  power?  Were  you  at  that  first 
Lord's  Supper  in  the  upper  room?  And  what  were  the 
very  words  he  used  on  that  occasion?  Give  them  to  me 
and  let  me  write  them  out  now  on  my  tablets?  What  was 
the  Lord's  teaching  about  the  remission  of  sins,  about 
spiritual  regeneration,  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit? 
What  did  he  say  about  his  own  coming  again  and  about 
the  judgment  day  and  the  final  awards?  Did  you  see 
him  and  hear  his  words  on  the  cross?  Can  you  show  me 
others  who  knew  at  first  hand  about  that  death? 

We  can  almost  hear  him  as  he  tells  Peter  that 
the  gospel  and  its  wholeness — as  a  great  scheme 
of  God — had  been  revealed  to  him  when  he  saw 
the  Christ  on  his  way  to  Damascus;  but  that  he 


58  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

wanted  to  know  definitely  and  from  those  who  knew 
the  Christ  personally  the  details  that  should  fill  out 
in  his  knowledge  that  divinely  given  summary  of 
Christian  fact.  This  spiritual  side  of  the  gospel 
he  knew  better  than  "  Peter,  and  James  the  Lord's 
brother  " ;  but  the  temporal  side  of  the  events,  and 
the  more  minute  circumstances  they  would  know 
better  than  he.  Nothing  would  escape  this  man, 
trained,  as  he  was,  to  careful  inquiry,  and  able  to 
mark  the  bearing  of  each  event  on  his  own  wide 
pantology  of  the  gospel  he  so  thoroughly  mastered 
that  afterward  he  could  speak  of  it  as  "  my  gospel." 
Why  has  no  painter  seized  on  that  most  important 
interview  and  given  us  in  his  picture  Paul  and 
Peter  questioning  and  answering  each  other,  their 
faces  lighted  up  with  a  glory  that  should  show  how 
a  divine  inspiration  could  stimulate  all  their  natural 
powers  to  highest  exercise  as  they  speak  of  these 
great  events  in  the  life  of  their  Lord?  Think  of 
them  as  they  talk  over  the  words  that  Peter  heard 
and  John  afterward  recorded,  when  Jesus  had 
spoken  of  his  disciples  as  "  in  him  as  the  branch 
is  in  the  vine-stalk."  Paul  caught  the  phrase,  and 
his  epistles  show  how  he  works  that  preposition 
"  in,"  as  believers  are  constantly  described  as  "  in 
Christ." 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  the  age  in  which 
Paul  lived  was  uncritical  and  credulous.  Doubtless 
in  that,  as  in  our  later  centuries,  there  were  un- 
critical men.     But  it  is  stoutly  denied  that  among 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  59 

the  class  of  men  to  which  Paul  belonged  there  was 
any  lack  of  careful  investigation.  The  special  lit- 
erary characteristic  of  the  time  was  not  credulity, 
but  the  very  opposite.  Men  gloried  in  holding  all 
beliefs  in  suspense.  That  which  astonished  Paul's 
auditors  on  Mars'  Hill  was  that  a  man  evidently 
educated — a  rhetorician,  a  logician,  and  in  philos- 
ophy the  peer  of  any  of  their  philosophers — should 
really  believe  something  as  actually  true  about  the 
Nazarene  of  Palestine. 

It  is  sure  that  the  Christian  communities  of  that  day 
held  in  suspense,  until  the  proof  was  overwhelming, 
certain  books  claiming  to  be  apostolic.  They  made 
selections.  They  used  not  exactly  our  modern  criti- 
cal methods.  But  all  critical  methods  worth  any- 
thing are  simply  formulated  common  sense  used  in 
investigation.  We  hear  Paul  citing  the  series  of 
proofs  that  convinced  him  of  the  reality  of  Christ's 
resurrection.  And  he  is  doing  it  to  remind  a  Chris- 
tian community  of  what  they  knew  already,  viz., 
"  that  he  (Christ)  was  seen  of  Cephas,  then  of  the 
Twelve,  after  that  of  five  hundred  brethren  at  once ; 
then  of  James,  then  of  all  the  apostles,  last  of  all 
of  me  also."  Here  are  marks  of  critical  care  alike 
in  the  apostle  and  the  church  to  which  he  is  writing. 
They  both  took  testimony,  so  that  they  might  form 
a  reliable  judgment  in  the  premises.  They  both 
ran  the  greatest  possible  risk  in  accepting  these 
facts ;  and  under  the  circumstances,  when  their  own 
lives  were  at  stake,  nothing  but  a  supreme  love  of 


60  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

truth  could  have  animated  them.  Mind  and  heart 
were  both  convinced  and  both  compelled  disciple- 
ship.  Indeed,  the  Pauline  writings  are  dominated 
by  the  fraternal  appeal  to  truth  about  a  historic 
Christ  in  which  they  both  had  earnestly  believed 
before  he  wrote.  Every  doctrine  grounded  itself 
upon  alleged  historic  facts.  Indeed,  every  doctrine 
was  a  historic  event  in  doctrinal  statement  instead 
of  factual  statement. 

We  have  seen  previously  in  this  chapter  what 
the  apostolic  Fathers,  who  kept  company  with  the 
apostles,  believed  and  taught,  and  also  what  the 
communities  they  addressed  believed  about  Jesus. 
They  held  him  to  be  a  historic  personage. 

We  come  now  to  cite  from  the  four  Epistles  of 
Paul,  above  mentioned,  the  proof  that  the  same 
historic  personage  described  by  the  apostolic  Fathers 
was  the  Christ  in  whom  Paul  believed. 

As  Paul,  when  converted,  had  seen  the  risen 
Christ,  so  naturally  he  looked  on  all  Christian  fact 
and  doctrine  through  the  lens  of  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion, (i)  He  cites  the  fact  of  that  resurrection 
(i  Cor.  15  :  4).  (2)  He  names  the  ascension  of 
Jesus  (1  Cor.  10:  16).  (3)  He  sees  Christ  at  the 
right  hand  of  God  (Rom.  8  :  34).  (4)  Christ  will 
return  to  judge  the  world  (Rom.  11  :  16).  (5) 
Christ  had  been  rich  in  heavenly  glory  before  he 
came  (2  Cor.  8:9).  (6)  Christ  was  the  man 
from  heaven  (1  Cor.  15:47).  (7)  He  was  present 
and  active  at  the  creation    (1    Cor.   8  :  6).      (8) 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  6l 

He  became  poor  for  our  sakes  (2  Cor.  8:9).  (9) 
His  crucifixion  is  named  (Gal.  2  :  20).  (10)  He 
was  betrayed  (1  Cor.  11  :  23).  (11)  The  rulers 
of  Israel  had  a  hand  in  the  matter  (1  Cor.  2:8). 
(12)  He  died  and  was  buried,  as  "the  Scriptures 
(*.  e.,  Old  Testament)  had  foretold"  (1  Cor.  15  : 
3).  (13)  He  rose  the  third  day  (1  Cor.  15  :  4). 
(14)  He  was  mortal  man  (1  Cor.  15  :  21).  (15) 
He  was  also  "  Son  of  God"  (Rom.  1  :  14).  (16) 
Paul  ascribes  miraculous  power  to  the  apostles  as 
given  them  by  the  Lord  Jesus  (1  Cor.  7,  et  al.). 
(17)  The  connecting  facts  of  Christ's  death,  burial, 
and  resurrection  are  cited  in  due  historic  order 
(1  Cor.  15  :  1  et  seq.).  (18)  Paul's  peculiar  ref- 
erences to  baptism  show  that  he  recognizes  it  as  not 
only  established,  but  as  illustrated  by  Christ  him- 
self. (19)  Christ's  birth  from  a  woman  is  named 
(1  Cor.  11  :  2^,  24).  (20)  Christ's  descent  from 
David  is  given  (Rom.  1:3).  (21)  Paul  names 
the  Lord's  Supper.  (22)  He  records,  as  he  says 
he  had  received  them,  the  very  words  Christ  used 
in  the  ordinance  (1  Cor.  11  :  23-27). 

These  twenty-two  direct  citations  of  Christian 
facts  occur  incidentally  in  four  short  epistles,  which 
are  not  intended  primarily  to  be  historical,  but  to  be 
doctrinal  writings.  Compare  now  these  twenty-two 
specific  references  with  the  above-quoted  sum- 
mary of  the  teachings,  not  of  the  second  class  of 
the  apostolic  Fathers — these  are  so  well  known  in 
their  references  to  Christ's  historicity  that  my  ar- 


62  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

gument  does  not  require  citations  from  them — but 
compare  these  with  the  teaching  of  the  first  class  of 
the  Fathers,  who  were  the  companions  of  the 
apostles,  and  the  coincidence  is  remarkable.  Cer- 
tainly both  are  describing  the  same  historic  Jesus. 

Remember  too,  that  in  these  four  Epistles,  the 
genuineness  of  which  is  admitted  by  even  the  most 
radical  of  "  the  advanced  critics,"  we  have  the  earli- 
est documentary  proofs  of  the  historic  Christ.  The 
allegation  of  a  very  prominent  skeptic,  as  above 
quoted,  is  this :  "  The  difficulty  is  not  to  prove  that 
Christ  was  believed  to  be  a  historic  personage  after 
the  fourth  century,  but  to  bridge  over  the  years 
from  a.  d.  i  to  300."  But  no  such  chasm  of  three 
hundred  years  exists.  We  have  not  only  the  second 
class  of  the  Fathers,  living  after  Peter,  Paul,  and 
John  had  died,  but  the  first  class  of  the  apostolic 
Fathers,  the  companions  and  disciples  of  the  apos- 
tles. Added  to  these  is  this  testimony  of  Paul  him- 
self in  these  twenty-two  citations  from  four  ad- 
mitted epistles,  not  now  to  urge  the  whole  tone  and 
spirit  of  them  as  in  consonance  with  the  historic 
facts  to  which  he  incidentally  refers. 

We  are  now  within  twenty-five  or  thirty  years 
of  the  crucifixion  and  resurrection  of  Jesus.  Is 
there  a  chasm  here  ?  Yes,  a  documentary  chasm ; 
and  it  comes  just  where  we  have  a  right  to  expect 
it ;  just  where  the  absence  of  that  kind  of  proof  is 
our  best  assurance  that  there  is  no  myth  or  fraud. 
We  must  recall  the  universally  conceded  method  of 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  63 

the  time.  It  was  that  a  master  did  not  himself 
write  out  his  teachings.  His  disciples  repeated  them 
orally  for  years.  That  was  their  special  business. 
To  use  a  modern  phrase,  they  were  his  "  publish- 
ers." It  has  been  claimed  that  Homer  did  not  put 
into  writing  his  immortal  poems;  that  they  were 
first  repeated  orally,  and  only  in  after  years  were 
they  written  out.  The  same  claim  is  made  for 
Socrates,  whose  disciples  gave  oral  publication  to 
his  teachings  at  first,  Plato  and  Xenophon  subse- 
quently setting  down  his  words.  Jesus  wrote,  so  far 
as  we  know,  no  single  line,  recorded  no  miracle,  but 
left  it,  by  express  command,  for  his  disciples  under 
divine  guidance,  after  first  preaching  his  gospel 
orally,  to  put  the  needed  story  into  form,  when  he 
should  have  departed.  Those  twenty-five  years 
were  bridged  in  exactly  the  way  that  historic  in- 
vestigation of  the  times  shows  to  have  been  the 
accepted  method.  Nor  was  there  danger  of  loss  of 
accuracy  in  a  method  necessary  at  that  period.  At 
Cairo,  in  Egypt,  to-day  it  is  said  that  a  teacher 
who  cannot  himself  read  one  word  of  the  Koran, 
teaches  scholars  who  are  ignorant  of  the  alphabet. 
And  the  memorizing  is  as  exact  as  though  read 
from  a  book  published  with  the  careful  proof- 
reading shown  by  the  "  Riverside  Press."  And  far 
within  this  period  of  twenty-five  years  there  had 
been  numerous  "  logia,"  i.  e.,  "  scraps  of  narra- 
tion," written  out  by  disciples — even  though  the 
great  mass  of  what  was  taught  and  believed  was  re- 


64  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

cited  orally.  Luke  speaks  of  this  very  time  when  he 
says  that  "  many  attempts  had  been  made  to  draw 
up  an  account  of  these  matters  that  are  accepted 
among  us  as  true." '  Here  we  are  then,  right  upon 
the  events  themselves,  eye-witnesses  testifying  and 
their  words  repeated  from  lip  to  lip,  while  brief 
snatches  of  "  the  things  accepted  among  us  "  are 
in  circulation.  These  "  scholia  "  or  "  logia  "  in  some 
cases  may  have  been  copied  word  for  word  in  parts 
of  some  of  the  synoptic  Gospels.  For  the  highest 
diligence  in  ascertaining  the  truth  by  human  in- 
vestigation is  entirely  consistent  with  the  divine  in- 
spiration of  the  writers,  since  they  would  be  guided 
in  deciding  what  to  retain  and  what  to  omit  out  of 
their  abundant  material.  The  chasm  is  filled.  We 
are  close  upon  Christ's  own  day. 

And  let  it  be  carefully  noted  that  the  historic 
Christ  of  these  Fathers,  and  of  Paul's  four  great 
Epistles  has  only  to  be  matched  with  our  four  Gos- 
pels to  show  the  whole  grand  unity  of  presentation. 
Here  is  no  "  Christ  first  devised  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury." Here  is  no  Christ  "  originated  by  Paul  "  ; 
no  Christ  "  the  conception  of  whom  was  started 
late  in  anti-apostolic  period,  between  a.  d.  150-300." 
Here  is  granitic  fact.  Here  is  sure  foundation. 
There  is  no  room  for  myth  in  those  earliest  years ; 
no  room  for  additions  such  as  the  imaginations  of 
subsequent  ages  might  suggest.  And  we  can  trace 
a    superior    wisdom    in    the    process    of    guarding 

1  Luke  1:1.     "  Twentieth  Century  New  Testament  Translation." 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  65 

against  mistakes  in  every  possible  way.  We  see 
the  divine  plan  for  "  the  oral  gospel  "  spoken  by 
eye-witnesses  and  their  immediate  converts ;  then 
for  the  earlier  Epistles  founded  on  the  Christian 
facts  and  breathing  their  moral  spirit ;  for  "  logia," 
with  threads  of  written  statement  about  this  or  that 
special  event  in  Christ's  life,  and  these  preparatory 
to  the  final  writing  of  our  four  authorized  Gospels ; 
also  for  the  later  apostolic  Epistles  not  only  of  Paul, 
but  of  Peter,  James,  and  John ;  and  finally,  for  the 
representations  through  broken  and  beautiful  visions 
in  the  book  of  The  Revelation  of  the  enthroned 
Christ  as  he  carries  out  from  "  the  right  hand  "  his 
work  in  establishing  on  earth  "the  kingdom  of  God." 
No  "  chasm  "  exists.  The  chain  has  no  missing  link, 
since  each  passes  through  and  is  interlocked  with 
its  fellow-link.  The  broad,  far-seeing  declaration  was 
precisely  fulfilled,  in  which  the  Master  promised  that 
disciples,  after  his  departure,  should  be  "  led  into  the 
truth,"  in  their  subsequent  records,  as  he  should 
"  bring  into  their  minds  "  what  he  had  said  and 
done.  If  one  did  not  know  beforehand,  he  could 
not  tell  often  whether  the  citation  was  from  Epistle 
or  Gospel,  so  thoroughly  one  are  the  two  stories 
of  Christ.  They  are  of  a  single  piece,  so  far  as 
events  are  concerned,  differing  only  in  the  purpose 
of  the  writer  in  either  case.  One  of  them  intention- 
ally omits  and  the  other  as  intentionally  inserts  an 
incident.  And  the  undesigned  coincidences  are  too 
many  and  too  obvious  to  be  accounted  for  aside 


66  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

from  the  integrity  of  the  writers  and  the  exactness 
of  their  records,  to  which  must  be  added  also  the 
guidance  of  the  inspiring  Spirit  of  God. 

Nor  can  we  omit  to  mention  the  fact  of  the  per- 
fect harmony  of  all  these  classes  of  writers  as  they 
present  the  unique  moral  qualities  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  model  man  of  Greek  conception  was  an  intel- 
lectual gladiator;  of  the  Roman,  a  man  of  physical 
powers ;  of  the  Egyptian,  a  mystical  recluse ;  of  the 
Jew,  a  man  of  either  Pharisaic  righteousness  or  of 
Sadducean  skepticism.  But  none  of  these  resem- 
bled in  the  faintest  degree  the  actual  personage 
known  as  "  the  Christ."  And  nothing  is  harder, 
from  a  literary  or  moral  point  of  view,  than  to  have 
various  writers,  each  with  a  different  aim,  present 
the  same  moral  qualities  as  belonging  to  one  per- 
sonality. And  when  it  is  done  successfully,  no 
proof  is  more  satisfactory  as  to  the  personality  of 
the  one  thus  depicted.  But  alike  in  Gospel  and 
Epistle,  Jesus  Christ  has  supreme  spiritual  qualities 
most  clearly  set  forth. 

He  is  represented  as  loving  with  a  love  for  God 
and  for  man  that  has  in  it  a  peculiarity  surpassing 
the  ordinary  human  love,  alike  in  kind  and  in  de- 
gree. He  has  a  meekness  and  a  gentleness  repre- 
sented in  Gospel  and  praised  in  Epistle,  that  is  with- 
out parallel  in  one  who  at  the  same  time  makes 
claims  never  made  by  man  before.  He  is  wise  not 
only  with  a  knowledge  of  what  is  in  the  heart  of 
man,  but  of  what  is  in  the  depths  of  the  divine 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  6j 

nature ;  and  he  is  represented  by  evangelist  and 
apostle  alike  as  penetrating  with  his  gaze  both  time 
and  eternity.  He  is  the  most  unselfish  of  charac- 
ters, forgetting  self  in  seeking  to  please  God  by  his 
life  and  to  redeem  man  by  his  death.  Above  all,  he 
sheds  over  his  whole  career,  in  childhood  and  in 
maturer  years,  in  teaching  and  in  his  whole  public 
activities,  and  in  his  most  familiar  social  life  a  cer- 
tain indescribable  influence  as  of  one  who  had  come 
from  heaven,  bringing  with  him  the  aroma  of  its 
own  divine  holiness.  That  holiness  is  central  and 
only  in  God.  He  is  the  "  Son  of  God."  And  this 
holy  aroma  pervades  the  whole  presentation  in  Gos- 
pel and  Epistle  equally,  and  gives  both  their  one- 
ness, showing  the  peculiar  guidance  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  historic  Christ  stands  forth.  His 
earthly  career  is  depicted.  His  inner  life  and  spirit 
are  laid  open.  And  it  is  all  done  with  such  com- 
pleteness, through  epistolary  and  evangelistic  docu- 
ments, that  we  are  not  looking  as  through  a  glass 
darkly,  but  we  see  our  Lord,  as  it  were,  face  to 
face. 

And  it  is  one  of  the  chief  joys  of  men  who  have 
long  been  close  students  of  the  New  Testament  that 
this  Christ,  so  far  from  vanishing,  as  the  years  go 
by,  comes  nearer  and  grows  more  real ;  and  they 
feel  better  acquainted  with  him  than  in  the  days 
of  their  youth.  They  revere  and  they  love  with 
distinct  personal  apprehension  of  the  personal  Jesus 
Christ. 


68  THE   MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

II.  The  Experiential  Proof. 

And  the  experiential  argument  not  only  for  the 
actuality  of  the  facts,  but  for  accuracy  in  the  rec- 
ords, is  to  be  given  due  place.  The  great  object 
of  the  biblical  records  about  what  Jesus  Christ 
was  and  did  and  said  is  to  secure  an  experience  in 
human  hearts  and  lives  in  response  thereto.  Such 
facts  and  truths  ought  to  produce  a  given  result. 
All  other  objects,  such  as  the  general  betterment 
of  humanity  on  earth,  are  subsidiary,  and  in  the 
end  are  better  attained  by  keeping  this  primary 
object  in  view.  What  is  more  needed  is  a  profound 
moral  impression  to  be  wrought  on  the  deepest  na- 
ture in  men  by  which  there  shall  be  in  them  a  spirit- 
ual apprehension  corresponding  to  God's  presenta- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ.  So  then,  the  historic  record 
of  Christ's  religion  in  the  Bible  is  to  be  more  or 
less  completely  matched  by  this  distinctive  Chris- 
tian experience.  The  "  signs  and  wonders  "  of  the 
New  Testament,  popularly  known  as  "  miracles," 
were  wrought  on  material  nature  or  on  the  human 
body.  The  object  was  through  the  bodily  senses  to 
impress  the  spiritual  nature  in  man.  But  what  if 
direct  work  on  the  very  substance  of  the  soul  itself 
is  the  highest  conceivable  kind  of  work?  Mark 
and  scar  the  earth  as  you  will,  build  your  structures, 
change  as  far  as  you  may  the  desert  to  a  fruitful 
field,  but  how  small  a  thing  you  have  done !  A 
little  time  and  the  last  dissolving  fires  shall  burn 
out  every  trace  of  your  work  upon  the  physical 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  69 

world.  And  as  to  the  human  body  on  which  these 
"  signs  and  wonders  "  of  healing  and  resurrection 
were  done,  it  has  its  doom  written  in  its  every  sub- 
stance. But  souls,  being  moral,  are  ever-enduring. 
Morality  is  immortality;  and  work  wrought  on  the 
souls  of  men  made  in  God's  image  is  therefore  as 
permanent  as  God  himself. 

And  here  emerges  the  meaning  of  Jesus  in  one 
of  his  declarations  in  which  the  reality  and  potency 
of  his  own  miracles  and  their  relation  to  his  teaching 
was  set  forth.  His  wonderful  words — words  more 
wonderful  than  the  miracles  themselves — were 
these,  "  He  that  believeth  on  me  the  works  that  I 
do  shall  he  do  also ;  and  greater  works  than  these." 
He  could  not  in  the  phrase  "  greater  works  than 
these "  have  had  reference  to  physical  miracle. 
For  while  it  was  true  that  physical  miracle  still 
lingered  a  little  time  with  the  apostles,  departing 
only  when  impossible  because  it  had  become  use- 
less, even  then  there  could  be  no  greater  "  miracle  " 
of  that  kind  than  the  raising  of  the  dead  when 
corruption  naturally  would  have  begun  its  foul  work. 
Jesus  did  that.  How  then,  could  his  apostles  in 
his  name  and  by  his  authority  do  "  greater  works 
than  these "  ?  The  reference  must  have  been  to 
some  higher  grade  of  working  wrought  on  the  su- 
perior substance  of  the  human  soul.  May  we  not 
claim  that  in  this  loftier  spiritual  realm,  the  work 
of  God's  Holy  Spirit  wrought  through  the  utter- 
ance of  Christian  lips  as  they  declare  these  truths 


yO  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

by  which  men  are  regenerated  and  sanctified,  takes 
to-day  the  place  of  the  old  out-worn  physical  mir- 
acles, and  that  this  is  to  us  of  these  later  cen- 
turies a  more  convincing  proof  of  Christianity  than 
would  be  any  repetition  of  them.  But  while  those 
physical  miracles  served  their  purpose  and  the  rec- 
ord of  them  continues  to  be  of  immense  importance 
for  the  Christian  world,  there  is  still  a  demand  for 
evidence  that  God  continues  to  do  "  mighty  works." 
The  first  Christian  century  was  a  long  time  ago. 
Is  there  not  something  fresh,  tangible,  something 
that  we  can  see  and  hear,  something  close  at  hand, 
something  of  present  proof,  as  the  years  of  this 
twentieth  century  open  to  us? 

There  is  a  natural  craving  for  continuous  mir- 
acle as  the  divine  attestation  of  truth.  All  history 
shows  it.  It  has  been  especially  evident  all  through 
these  Christian  centuries.  When  spiritual  religion 
had  died  down  almost  to  its  very  roots,  this  instinc- 
tive demand  insisted  more  positively  than  ever  upon 
some  form  of  miracle,  and  men  expected  it  in  the 
physical  realm.  Hence,  in  the  Roman  Church  the 
"  mass  "  as  a  perpetual  miracle.  Then  came  wink- 
ing pictures,  nodding  statues,  miracles  at  wells  and 
churches,  white  bones  of  deceased  saints  with  en- 
ergy of  healing  in  them,  and  all  the  long  list  of 
ecclesiastical  devices.  We  may  smile  at  the  super- 
stition. But  sober,  thoughtful,  educated  men  have 
believed  in  these  things.  And  instead  of  being 
amused,  or  even  pitying  those  thus  deluded,  is  it 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  71 

not  better  to  ask  if  there  is  not  some  demand  in 
men's  hearts,  put  there  by  God  himself,  for  fresh 
and  continuous  evidence  of  the  truth  of  Christian- 
ity? We  claim  that  God  is  still  at  work  among 
men;  that  he  is  giving  us  evidence  in  the  spiritual 
realm;  that  instead  of  standing  on  a  lower  ground 
than  that  of  those  who  saw  the  wonderful  works 
of  Christ  in  his  temporary  abode  on  earth,  we  stand 
on  a  higher  plane  and  see  "  greater  things  than 
these."  So  that  when  to  those  old  miracles  we  add 
these  modern  manifestations,  we  have  an  amount 
of  evidence  which  should  confound  the  skeptic,  con- 
vince the  inquirer,  and  convert  the  world.  The 
old  miracles  are  not  repeated  because  the  better 
manifestations  take  their  place.  What  need  of  erect- 
ing new  scaffolding  when  the  completed  building 
stands  out  in  sharpest  sunlight? 

But  what  follows  from  this  new  manifestation? 
This :  there  will  be  a  correspondence  between  the 
spiritual  truth  which  underlies  the  miracle  written 
on  the  biblical  page  and  that  experience  which  is 
written  on  the  Christian  soul.  This  distinctive  bib- 
lical truth  and  this  distinctive  Christian  experience 
match  each  other.  The  writer  of  these  pages  has 
elsewhere  said: 

What  proof  have  we  on  some  dark  and  dreary  day 
that  there  is  a  sun?  No  eye  sees  it.  But  suppose  on  such 
a  day  some  beautiful  flower  were  endowed  with  the  gift 
of  consciousness,  so  that  it  knew  itself  and  knew  also  the 
influences  that  had  made  it  what  it  is.     It  has  taken  in  the 


J2  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

sunlight  for  many  long  hours  and  used  it.  It  has  absorbed 
and  retained  the  solar  rays,  so  that  all  its  colors  are  really 
sun  colors.  It  is  not  more  conscious  of  itself  than  it  is 
that  the  sun  has  made  it  what  it  is.  Its  beauty  is  due  to 
what  it  has  received.  Its  voice,  if  it  could  speak  about 
itself,  is  also  necessarily  its  voice  about  the  sun,  so  that 
if  your  ear  is  sharp  to  hear  its  testimony  and  your  eye 
quick  to  note  its  gesture,  it  says  to  you  most  impressively 
that  there  is  a  sun.  So  the  Christian  experience  has  taken 
up,  absorbed,  retained,  and  employed  the  great  facts  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  out  of  its  consciousness, 
when  we  have  shut  for  the  hour  the  lids  of  the  revealed 
word,  we  may  learn  them  anew.  The  flower  certainly 
exists.  And  the  Christian  experience  is  as  certainly  a 
reality.  And  when  that  reality  is  once  established  and  is 
earefully  studied,  it  becomes  a  wonderfully  strong  con- 
firmation of  the  great  Christian  facts  and  doctrines.1 

On  the  very  face  of  the  New  Testament  we  have 
the  story  of  a  divinely  redemptive  interference. 
God's  love  for  the  world  as  seen  in  the  gospel  is 
far  other  than  that  shown  by  some  kind-hearted 
judge  who  gives  the  man  on  trial  the  utmost  abate- 
ment, the  furthest  possible  allowance  that  justice 
will  admit ;  who  listens  to  all  that  makes  for  excuse, 
allows  all  possible  extenuation,  and  is  to  the  utter- 
most mercifully  disposed.  God  is  all  that,  and  is 
far,  very  far,  more  than  that.  Redemptive  inter- 
ference in  a  distinctly  definite  method  is  declared 
in  that  epitome  of  the  gospel  given  by  Jesus  Christ 
himself  when  he  said,  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that 
he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  be- 

1  "  The  Christian  Experience,"  p.  152. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  73 

lieveth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlast- 
ing life."  Such  facts  of  interference  strike  deep. 
They  rouse  attention.  They  startle  the  conscience. 
They  are  the  subsoil  plow  that  turns  a  furrow  deep 
and  wide.  No  man  can  permit  himself  one  honest 
hour  over  that  text,  letting  it  fully  and  fairly  into 
the  mind  and  through  the  mind  into  the  heart,  with- 
out emotion.  These  facts  ought  to  convert.  They 
are  adapted  to  produce  in  the  deepest  depth  of  any 
human  soul,  an  experience  of  personal  religion. 

One  part  of  this  redemptive  process  is  that  of 
a  new  inward  life.  The  recipients  of  this  new  life, 
because  of  the  efficacy  of  God's  Spirit  in  using  these 
truths,  are  said  to  be  "  born  of  God,"  "  born  of 
the  Spirit,"  "  born  from  above."  Here  is  the  truth 
exactly  adapted  to  do  this  work;  and  here  is  the 
agent  to  accomplish  by  means  of  it  the  desired 
result. 

It  is  a  matter  of  observation  that  this  effect  of 
responsive  experience  is  actually  produced.  It  is 
freely  admitted  that  great  outward  changes  can  be 
produced  by  an  executive  will  acting  in  the  presence 
of  a  high  ideal  held  fast  before  a  man's  mind  and 
heart.  Drunkards  have  left  drink,  gamblers  have 
left  their  games,  licentious  men  have  become  re- 
formed. But  the  changes  under  these  great  Chris- 
tian convictions  are  of  a  deeper  kind  and  affect  all 
the  inward  springs  of  life.  The  swearer  is  seen  to 
leave  off  his  oaths  and  to  speak  reverently  of  God, 
and  even  to  pray  to  him.    The  man  who  had  little 


74  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

conscience  in  anything  becomes  now  conscientious  in 
the  smallest  matters — matters  about  which  he  had 
never  before  had  any  sense  of  the  right  and  the 
wrong.  A  man  was  notorious  for  hating  Chris- 
tians; they  are  his  brethren  now.  His  life  shows  a 
heart  set  on  new  objects.  Things  once  matters  of 
indifference  have  for  him  now  a  thrilling  interest. 
Things  disliked,  perhaps  despised  once,  now  at- 
tract and  fascinate.  New  aims  animate  him.  New 
pleasures  are  craved.  New  hopes  wake  in  the  soul. 
New  aspirations  seize  upon  him.  Life  is  pitched 
on  a  higher  key,  and  his  thought  and  feeling  are 
in  a  loftier  realm.  Another  kind  of  world  has 
opened  before  him,  and  he  is  another  kind  of  man. 

Nor  is  it  one  sex  only  which  is  thus  transformed. 
She  who  was  notoriously  giddy  has  become  sober- 
minded.  She  whose  tongue  spoke  only  the  dialect 
of  folly  learns  to  sing  the  songs  of  religion,  and 
sing  them  from  the  heart.  Sometimes  the  very 
features  of  the  face  are  transformed.  Instead  of 
the  old,  thoughtless,  expressionless  look,  a  new  no- 
bility and  a  high  moral  purposefulness  stamp  them- 
selves upon  the  countenance  and  show  a  radical 
change  for  the  better  life.  And  in  a  multitude  of 
instances  this  change  is  permanent,  and  this  new 
interior  life  grows  in  strength.  Temptations  are 
resisted,  and  distinctive  Christian  virtues  are  culti- 
vated until  the  Christian  character  is  achieved  that 
abides  for  time  and  eternity. 

Sometimes  this  regeneration  occurs  in  early  child- 


THE  BIBLE  AND   THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  75 

hood.  Little  contrast  is  possible  between  the  old 
and  the  new  to  the  consciousness  of  the  child  him- 
self. Nor  is  it  so  obvious  in  the  outward  life  to 
those  not  intimate  with  him.  In  such  a  case  the 
contrast  is  to  be  seen  between  this  child  and  some 
other  child  of  similar  age  and  surroundings.  The 
contention  now  and  here  made,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, is  not  about  conversion  considered  with  ref- 
erence to  any  suddenness,  but  with  reference  to  the 
years  of  regenerate  life  that  follow  it.  Sometimes 
an  adult  is  in  doubt  because  conversion  came  so 
early ;  such  an  one  cannot  contrast  the  memory 
of  previous  wrong  feeling  with  present  right  feel- 
ing. Here  too,  the  contrast  is  of  one's  own  ex- 
perience with  that  of  non-religious  men  all  about 
him  in  the  community.  And  in  that  contrast  he  will 
perceive  the  profound  inward  difference  between 
"  him  that  serveth  God  and  him  that  serveth  him 
not." 

So  far  the  appeal  has  been  to  observation.  But 
there  is  the  further  appeal — the  appeal  to  testimony. 
We  must  remember  that  there  are  millions  of  men 
who  speak  of  an  inward  religious  experience  of 
which  they  are  conscious  as  coming  from  these 
gospel  facts  and  truths.  They  offer  it  as  their  own 
personal  testimony.  Something — they  frequently 
put  it  in  another  way,  saying  Some  One — has  en- 
tered into  their  life  vitally.  They  have  had  an  ex- 
perience corresponding  to  that  so  continually  as- 
sumed and  so  often  directly  described  in  the  Epistles 


j6  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

of  the  New  Testament  as  the  characteristic  thing 
in  the  discipleship  of  those  to  whom  those  Epistles 
were  addressed.  They  understand  for  the  first  time 
what  those  Epistles  mean.  The  sealed  book  has 
been  opened  to  them.  They  say  that  they  came 
to  feel  the  guilt  as  well  as  the  folly  of  a  former 
godless  and  prayerless  life.  It  oppressed  them. 
They  felt  that  this  wrong  was  not  so  much  a  thing 
of  the  surface  as  of  the  soul.  They  were  out  of 
harmony  with  their  God;  and  the  reason  for  this 
disharmony  was  deep  down  in  the  central  self,  and 
this  central  self  needed  to  be  made  over.  They 
saw  that  either  God  must  change  or  they  must 
change  if  he  and  they  were  to  dwell  together  in 
his  heaven.  He  could  not  change,  and  they,  while 
able  to  do  many  an  outward  thing,  could  not  change 
their  deeper  self.  God  by  his  gracious  Spirit  must 
do  that  work  in  them.  Young  hearts  wanted  Christ 
as  their  Friend,  because  they  dared  not  venture 
out  into  life  alone.  Older  persons,  who  had  tried 
vainly  to  do  at  least  a  little  in  bending  their  in- 
ward nature  and  had  failed  at  the  task,  have  felt 
the  need  of  a  spiritual  and  radical  change  in  the 
substance  of  the  soul  itself.  Their  guilt  was  their 
weakness,  and  their  weakness  was  their  guilt.  There 
came  to  them — sometimes  it  came  to  them  suddenly, 
sometimes  gradually — the  great  gospel  fact  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  the  Friend  needed  by  the  youth, 
the  Saviour  needed  by  the  adult.  It  was  like  a 
new   revelation.     The  historic  character  of  Jesus 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  JJ 

had  been  a  matter  of  merely  popular  and  general 
knowledge.  He  had  indeed  been  known  as  a  model 
of  all  virtues;  the  ideal  man.  But  it  had  been  a 
kind  of  loose  intellectual  knowledge;  a  matter  of 
some  faint  interest,  as  was  the  question  of  the  in- 
habitability  of  the  planet  Mars.  But  now  Jesus  Christ 
was  seen ;  nay,  more  than  seen.  He  was  appre- 
hended as  God's  special  manifestation  to  meet  one's 
human  needs ;  as  one  able  by  his  Spirit  to  enter  into 
our  very  souls  and  fulfil  his  promise,  "  I  will  come 
to  you " — all  this  comes  home  to  a  man's  own 
soul.  It  is  borne  in  upon  his  individual  conscious- 
ness. God  is  no  more  conceived  of  by  such  a  man 
as  the  apex  of  a  logical  pyramid,  but  he  is  God  en- 
tering into  the  deepest  experience  possible  to  man. 
And  as  God  once  revealed  himself  at  the  incarnation 
by  historic  interference  for  the  world's  salvation, 
so  now  he  manifests  himself  to  the  individual  man 
by  personal  interference.  God  deals  with  the  soul 
and  the  soul  with  God.  And  the  testimony  of  this 
man  is  that  he  has  a  new  God,  a  new  Christ,  lives 
in  a  new  world.  "If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a 
new  creature." 

It  may  be  said  that  this  sketch  of  experience  and 
testimony  has  in  mind  extreme  instances.  Some 
one  said  at  a  meeting  on  "  Round  Top,"  at  North- 
field,  which  Mr.  Moody  was  conducting,  that  "  re-' 
ligious  experiences  had  suffered  a  diminution  in 
vividness  during  the  last  half-century."  Mr.  Moody 
admitted  it  so  far  as  the  opening  experiences  of 


yS  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

the  religious  life  are  concerned.  But  he  insisted 
that  if  there  was  less  of  the  sense  of  sinfulness  at 
the  outset,  repentance  was  sure  to  come  afterward, 
and  in  purer  form  and  often  with  even  more  vivid- 
ness. Again,  be  it  said  that,  in  our  argument  noth- 
ing depends  upon  the  time  of  the  occurrence,  but 
that  the  experience  itself  is  the  thing  to  be  noted. 
Bunyan's  Pilgrim  did  not  find  his  burden  rolled 
off  his  shoulders  when  he  first  left  the  City  of 
Destruction.  That  consciousness  came  when  he  was 
on  well  past  the  gate  that  opened  into  the  narrow 
way.  And  it  is  when  the  experience  is  somewhat 
advanced  that  it  can  be  best  surveyed  and  the 
testimony  best  be  given  as  to  its  reality. 

Nor  can  this  testimony  be  resolved  into  the  mem- 
ory of  an  experience  coming  from  natural  causes. 
Adolescence  has  been  named.  A  period  of  natural 
moral  awakening  in  childhood  and  youth  has  been 
cited  as  the  frequent  time  when  conversion  occurs. 
And  it  is  doubtless  true  that  the  child  awakens  to 
religious  ideas  exactly  as  he  awakes  in  youth  to  a 
sense  of  numbers  in  arithmetic.  But  what  of  the 
vast  number  of  those  in  early  life  who,  awakening 
to  the  sense  of  moral  personality,  do  not  become 
regenerate?  The  regeneration  claimed  by  millions 
is  to  them  a  totally  distinct  thing  from  their  first 
awaking  to  the  study  of  their  own  personality. 
Even  a  child  led  by  God's  Spirit  has  felt  the  need 
of  something  to  change  his  selfhood;  something 
lacking,  as  a  boy  said,  "  something  that  shall  make 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC   SPIRIT  79 

it  easy  to  do  right  from  within."  And  many  a  child 
has  found  that  the  "  something  lacking  "  was  exactly 
met  in  a  simple  childlike  and  yet  thoroughly  genuine 
experience  of  religion.  There  is  a  delightful  art- 
lessness  in  childhood  as  it  takes  on  trust  the  prom- 
ises of  the  Bible  and  finds  that,  in  the  very  act  of 
trusting,  a  new  inward  life  has  begun.  The  child 
cannot  analyze  it,  cannot  put  his  testimony  into  lan- 
guage an  adult  would  use.  But  the  experiential  re- 
sult is  the  same,  and  in  after  years  the  witnessing 
lips  can  speak  out  of  the  old  memory  of  those 
childhood  days. 

But  it  is  from  adults  who,  with  more  exact  and 
measured  speech,  can  tell  their  experience  in  re- 
ligion that  we  get  the  testimony  we  would  secure. 
They  say  that  these  gospel  facts  and  the  doctrines 
derived  directly  from  them  when  first  considered 
roused  dislike.  Seen  to  be  important,  they  were,  to 
say  the  least,  unwelcome.  In  some  cases  there  was 
strong  opposition;  occasionally  a  kind  of  bitterness 
of  feeling,  if  of  not  actual  hatred.  Subsequently, 
after  a  more  or  less  definite  period,  these  very  truths 
that  had  been  distasteful  were  joyfully  received 
and  affection  took  the  place  of  dislike.  Surely, 
that  is  not  the  natural  result  of  things !  One  might 
ask  how  long  must  one  dislike  the  truth  in  order 
that,  as  "  the  natural  result "  of  that  dislike,  he 
comes  to  love  it?  How  ardent  is  to  be  the  hatred 
in  order  to  induce  affection  in  a  human  soul? 

And   the   testimony    is   this:   that   precisely   the 


8o  the  mature  man's  difficulties 

same  truths,  through  "  a  superior  influence "  ex- 
erted on  the  mind  and  heart,  produced  this  benefi- 
cent result.  That  "  superior  influence,"  they  say, 
was  from  outside  themselves.  They  ascribe  it  to 
God's  Spirit  working  upon  them  "  to  will  and  to 
do."  The  truth  was  the  instrument  used  by  the 
divine  agent.  The  truth  alone  would  have  con- 
tinued and  intensified  the  dislike  and  opposition. 
Truth  was  poured,  like  light  from  a  sun  at  mid- 
day, upon  the  Jews  when  Christ  was  on  earth.  They 
opposed  all  the  more.  The  record  is  "  they  crucified 
him."  It  is  true  that  these  facts,  as  has  before 
been  urged,  have  in  them  a  tendency  to  convert. 
So  when  you  throw  a  thistle-down  into  the  air,  as 
it  falls  it  tends  towards  China.  But  it  will  not  get 
there.  The  whole  diameter  of  the  earth  stands  in 
its  way.  So  there  is  a  heart — and  these  men  tes- 
tify to  that  fact  as  a  former  personal  experience — 
naturally  unresponsive  and  often  hard,  between  the 
truth  and  its  legitimate  result  in  conversion.  The 
facts  of  an  actual  change  in  the  disposition  of  the 
soul  must  be  traced  farther  back  and  higher  up. 
Truth  was  the  fit  instrumentality  divinely  used. 
But  He  who  used  it,  always  in  consonance  with 
the  man's  own  freedom  of  choice,  was  the  divine 
Spirit.  And  his  work,  through  the  agency  of  Chris- 
tian men,  is  the  work  "  greater  than  these  "  miracles, 
of  which  Jesus  spoke. 

Such  is  the  testimony  of  thousands  of  men.    And 
something  must  be  done  with  this  testimony.     The 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE    HISTORIC  SPIRIT  8l 

men  who  give  it  are  honest  men.  There  are  too 
many  millions  of  them  to  permit  for  a  moment  the 
idea  of  universal  deception  or  of  universal  mis- 
take. Here  is  an  amount  of  testimony  offered  by 
men  who  have  no  earthly  reason  for  making  this 
claim  save  that  they  know  it  is  true  and  that  their 
fellow-men  need  to  know  it.  Here  is  evidence 
which,  unless  one  assumes  that  nothing  can  ever 
be  proved  by  human  testimony,  is  absolutely  con- 
clusive in  this  matter  of  inward  renewal  as  a  thing 
of  personal  experience. 

But  here  comes  the  inquiry :  What  of  historic  fact 
does  this  experience  involve? 

It  is  a  universal  characteristic  of  this  experience 
that  it  leads  men  to  turn  at  once  to  the  Bible  as 
the  word  of  God;  and  they  do  it  by  a  kind  of 
spiritual  instinct.  It  is  as  natural  to  them  as  for 
a  babe  to  turn  to  its  mother's  breast.  There  is  the 
instant  feeling  that  in  looking  into  this  volume  they 
will  find  that  which  responds  to  this  new  experi- 
ence, as  face  answers  to  face  in  a  mirror.  And 
they  are  not  disappointed.  It  is  all  in  the  Bible, 
both  as  cause  and  as  product.  There  had  been  the 
general  knowledge  of  a  few  great  facts  for  which 
the  world  is  indebted  to  this  volume.  But  sub- 
sequently these  known  facts,  set  home  divinely  to 
the  individual  soul,  woke  new  thought  and  feeling 
and  purpose.  The  man  had  hardly  need  to  ask  the 
source  of  that  which  so  startled  and  transformed 
him.     He  knows  where  this  truth  is  to  be  found. 

F 


&2  THE   MATURE   MAN*S   DIFFICULTIES 

He  instinctively  opens  his  Bible.  It  appeals  at  once 
to  his  soul.  Such  a  man  has  now  a  key  to  the 
peculiar  lock. 

True,  there  are  whole  sections  of  the  Bible  that 
can  only  be  understood  afterward  when  the  broad- 
est geographical  and  exegetical  knowledge  shall  be 
acquired.  But  at  the  very  outset,  how  much  more 
in  the  progressive  study  of  years,  there  is  a  vital- 
izing touch  of  God  on  the  soul  by  which  its  old 
spiritual  blindness  is  cured  and  the  restored  vision 
sees  God  in  the  Bible.  Text  after  text  is  illumi- 
nated. The  throb  of  the  new  life  finds  answering 
throb  in  the  heart  of  God  as  here  revealed.  God 
manifests  himself  elsewhere,  but  God  speaks  di- 
rectly here,  and  his  voice  is  recognized  and  the  soul 
starts  up  in  happy  response.  Said  one  of  old,  "  I 
will  hear  what  God  the  Lord  will  speak."  The 
man  is  in  delightful  sympathy  with  this  God  of  the 
Bible.  It  is  this  man's  book,  and  it  is  God's  book 
for  this  very  man.  It  comes  home  to  his  inner  life. 
Now,  it  is  a  promise  that  seizes  on  one's  heart 
and  unfolds  its  benediction  of  sacred  blessing,  and 
then  it  is  some  scene  in  the  history  therein  recorded 
that  is  apprehended  on  its  spiritual  side,  and  has  a 
wealth  of  meaning  of  which  the  man  had  never 
dreamed.  And  so  part  after  part  of  the  volume 
gets  itself  spiritually  believed ;  and  this  kind  of  be- 
lief carries  with  it  the  belief  in  the  historicity  of 
that  which  is  of  such  worth  to  the  soul.  And  con- 
nected with  the  truths  thus  spiritually  discerned  are 


THE   BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC   SPIRIT  83 

things  up  to  which  the  soul  has  not  reached  as  yet. 
But  the  spiritual  mind  reasons  correctly  when  it 
says  so  many  things  once  in  darkness  are  now 
"  light  in  the  Lord,"  that  these  other  things,  closely 
connected  with  those  now  verified,  are  to  be  also 
verified  in  the  further  experience  of  this  regenerate 
life.  Things  loosely  held,  or  altogether  rejected,  are 
more  easily  believed.  It  is,  as  in  the  body,  where 
one  sense  corrects  and  then  reenforces  and  substan- 
tiates another.  The  spiritual  side  of  biblical  facts 
is  always  the  main  thing  about  them. 

And  this  side  recognized,  it  is  felt  that  the  merely 
physical  side,  which  is  only  the  shadow  of  the  real 
substance,  is  demanded  alike  by  logic  and  by  feel- 
ing. A  Christian  of  mature  years,  who  has  fre- 
quently listened  to  recitals  of  Christian  experience, 
will  be  likely  to  recall  very  many  instances  in  which 
not  only  biblical  promises,  but  biblical  facts,  have 
received  verifications  on  their  spiritual  side,  which 
carry  with  them  the  confirmation  of  historicity.  In 
the  Christian  experience  detailed  in  the  Epistles  a 
great  number  of  comparatively  minor  facts  in  the 
Old  Testament  are  used  on  their  spiritual  side 
as  interpreting  and  therefore  confirming  their  his- 
torical reality.  The  "  vital  eye  "  of  the  regenerate 
man  marks  what  the  merely  intellectual  student, 
however  keen,  will  never  perceive.  These  are  the 
things  of  which  Paul  speaks  as  "  spiritually  dis- 
cerned." With  many  thousands  of  these  spiritual 
verifications  now  known,  it  may  be  at  length  true 


84  THE   MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

that  all  the  biblical  facts  will  be  found  in  the  con- 
tents of  the  ultimate  religious  experiences  of  Chris- 
tians to  have  been  thus  used.  Enough  verifica- 
tions have  been  made  to  warrant  us  in  receiving  the 
Bible  as  God's  truth.  We  have  not  mapped  out 
all  the  stars  of  the  universe,  but  only  enough  to 
warrant  the  belief  in  a  universal  astronomy.  These 
great  moral  verifications  already  made  cover  the 
general  historicity  of  the  Bible  as  a  book  culmina- 
ting in  the  records  of  the  historic  Christ.  On  the 
way  to  the  final  result  of  a  complete  verification 
there  are  specific  things  that  are  distinctly  mirrored 
in  the  Christian  experience. 

We  look  into  it  to  find  a  personal  God  distinctly 
revealed.  The  God  disclosed  is  not  the  abstract 
God  of  "  the  unknown  and  the  unknowable  " ;  nor 
the  scantily  conceded  God  of  the  mere  naturalist — 
a  God  who  is  little  else  than  the  center  of  natural 
forces  and  tendencies ;  nor  the  God  of  pantheistic 
speculation  who,  since  he  is  everything,  is  nothing 
of  a  God.  The  God  seen  and  felt  and  known  in 
the  inner  life  of  the  regenerate  soul  is  as  distinctly 
and  definitely  a  person  as  is  the  man  himself.  The 
Psalms,  so  largely  experiential,  make  God  espe- 
cially visible  in  the  consciousness  of  the  godly  man. 
The  constant  terms  are  "  our  God  "  and  "  my  God." 
The  fellowship  is  so  intimate  that  there  is  a  kind 
of  blended  consciousness,  and  we  sometimes  can- 
not quite  decide  whether  in  a  given  psalm  God  is 
speaking  to  his  child  or  the  child  is  speaking  to  his 


THE   BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  85 

God.  The  mirror  sends  back  from  its  depths  the 
face  that  looks  in  upon  it.  Make  the  rose  conscious, 
and  it  testifies  of  the  sun  from  which  it  took  its 
colors.  Bushnell  called  this  consciousness  "  the 
participation  of  God  that  assimilates."  It  is  not 
the  merely  "  intellectual  God-consciousness "  of 
which  certain  German  writers  speak;  it  is  rather 
a  moral  God-consciousness.  And  in  it  the  soul  finds 
itself  verifying  the  truth  of  the  grand  old  Hebrew 
seers  and  singers  of  the  Old  Testament  in  what  they 
say  about  God. 

Further,  the  mirror  of  the  soul's  experience  re- 
flects the  peculiar  God  of  the  Bible  in  his  aspect  of 
the  God  of  righteousness.  The  regenerate  soul  is  on 
the  side  of  right.  It  wants  right  done.  It  is  glad 
that  its  God  is  not  the  bald,  bare,  characterless  God 
of  mere  literary  conception.  On  the  contrary,  char- 
acter is  the  main  thing  about  him.  A  man  just  com- 
ing into  the  religious  life  said,  "  I  don't  want  God 
to  do  any  wrong  in  saving  me."  He  was  smitten 
through  and  through  with  a  sense  of  righteousness, 
and  hesitated  to  believe  that  a  righteous  God  under 
any  circumstances  could  forgive  a  sin.  The  clear, 
clean  sense  of  eternal  righteousness  was  rising  in 
this  man's  soul.  He  must  have  a  righteous  God. 
And  such  a  one  he  found  described  on  the  biblical 
page.  And  mature,  modern  men,  in  studying  for 
years  the  Bible,  find  that  it  leads  them  constantly 
to  greater  heights  and  gives  to  the  deepest  nature 
in  them  an  increasing  satisfaction.     They  see  with 


86  THE    MATURE    MANS   DIFFICULTIES 

the  vital  eye  of  the  soul  the  moral  beauty  of  holi- 
ness as  it  shines  in  the  God  of  the  Bible.  Holiness 
is  "  wholeness  " — completeness  in  all  respects ;  the 
blending  of  all  excellencies.  It  is  what  harmony  is 
in  music — the  perfect  agreement  of  related  sounds. 
No  one  excellence  craved  by  the  soul  as  it  wor- 
ships is  lacking,  and  the  unison  of  all  these  excel- 
lences in  a  perfect  God  is  desired.  Such  a  God,  the 
one  holy  God,  he  finds  revealed  only  in  the  Bible. 

So  too,  the  soul  gets  at  itself  in  its  best  experi- 
ences in  this  regenerate  life;  and  this  also  admits 
of  verification  in  the  Scripture  revelations  concern- 
ing man.  Certain  psychological  questions  are  agi- 
tating thoughtful  men.  They  are  questions  about 
reality.  And  they  concern  especially  the  reality  of 
the  soul.  Is  what  we  call  the  soul  "  a  real  thing," 
or  only  a  "  stream  of  tendencies  "  ?  Let  us  put 
this  question  to  our  personal  consciousness  where 
we  can  find  that  consciousness  at  its  deepest,  purest, 
and  best — in  the  regenerate  nature.  There  we  have 
it  nearest  Eden.  We  can  indeed  reason  about 
"  states  of  mind  as  all  we  know,"  and  that  there  is 
constantly  a  "  me  within  us  that  correlates  them." 
But  the  moral  consciousness  speaks  more  distinctly. 
It  is  the  testimony  of  something  deeper  and 
more  vivid  and  trustworthy — the  central  selfhood. 
And  this  personal  self  within  is  moved  upon  mor- 
ally in  response  to  the  personal  God ;  and  it  acts  as 
only  a  separate  person  can  act  in  this  moral  re- 
sponse.    The  deepest  in  the  soul  finds  itself  rising 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  87 

up  into  consonance  with  the  deepest  in  God — the 
God  of  the  Bible.  It  is  the  personal  touch  of  moral 
natures.  In  God's  own  image  he  made  man;  and 
into  that  image  he  remakes  man.  Consciousness 
finds  power  as  an  ultimate  fact,  not  of  matter,  but 
of  mind.  We  originate,  and  in  so  far  are  like  in 
kind  of  power  to  God.  We  act  on  the  plane  of  the 
true  and  the  false  as  does  God;  also  on  the  plane 
of  the  right  and  the  wrong,  as  does  God.  Starting 
up  in  the  consciousness  of  these  noble  powers,  one 
begins  to  "  come  to  himself."  Now  make  this  nat- 
ural consciousness  to  become  a  Christian  conscious- 
ness, and  the  man  knows  himself  as  having  a  soul 
with  boundless  capacities  for  joy  or  for  sorrow. 

And  the  Scriptures  make  their  steady  appeal,  not 
to  any  vague  "  stream  of  consciousness,"  but  to 
that  deep  selfhood  morally  roused  in  the  regen- 
erated soul.  The  fact  of  a  soul  is  given  unmis- 
takably in  this  Christian  experience  as  a  parallel 
fact  with  that  of  God's  own  consciousness,  which  is 
set  forth  in  the  Bible.  The  soul  has  its  moral  God 
by  virtue  of  being  a  moral  soul — made  originally  in 
the  divine  image.  There  is  in  godly  men  the  sense 
of  restoration,  and  this  is  the  constant  presentation 
of  the  sacred  volume.  Conversion  is  the  soul's 
home-coming  to  God,  alike  in  the  biblical  language 
and  in  the  Christian  testimony.  And  the  subsequent 
new  life  is  the  historicity  of  a  soul's  dealing  with 
God  as  the  Bible  is  the  historical  record  of  God's 
dealings  with  the  human  soul. 


88  THE   MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

But  the  distinctive  Christian  experience  gathers 
itself  about  Jesus  Christ,  and  so  is  able  to  verify 
the  main  Christian  facts  on  their  moral  side.  It 
cannot  give  direct  testimony  as  to  the  details — such, 
for  instance,  as  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand. 
But  that  feeding  was  along  the  main  lines  of 
Christ's  career;  was  seen  as  a  fit  miracle  for  the 
time,  place,  and  circumstances ;  was  a  great  object- 
lesson,  and  it  stands  so  connected  with  positive 
moral  teaching  given  at  the  time  that,  like  the  seam- 
less garment  of  the  Lord,  it  cannot  be  rent  asunder. 
But  the  great  facts  in  their  morally  historic  set- 
ting are  involved  in  regenerate  experience.  The 
soul's  call  is  for  the  intervention  alike  of  rescue 
and  of  renewal.  Some  moral  acts  are  exactly  equal 
to  our  natural  powers;  and  some  are  as  certainly 
beyond  them.  We  cannot  directly  do  these  latter 
things.  But  when  in  physics,  the  load  is  too  heavy 
for  our  native  strength,  we  avail  ourselves  of  the 
mechanical  powers — the  screw,  the  wedge,  the 
lever.  And  in  the  matters  of  the  soul  there  is  need 
of  outside  help ;  for  the  consciousness  of  our  sinful 
need  is  universal.  Some  few,  misled  by  a  wrong 
philosophy,  would  deny  it,  exactly  as  some  few 
would  deny  bodily  pain.  Some  few,  through  per- 
sonal pride,  would  ignore  it.  But  the  exceptions 
only  prove  the  universal  verdict.  No  man  can  go 
down  into  his  own  soul  and  not  find  there  need  of 
salvation  not  only  from  sin,  but  from  a  sinful  self. 
And  the  light  which  he  carries  down  into  the  re- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  HISTORIC  SPIRIT  89 

cesses  of  the  soul,  if  he  is  a  fair  and  honest  man, 
is  the  light  of  the  holy  God  of  the  Bible.  The 
clearer  the  light  and  the  sharper  the  vision,  the 
greater  the  sense  of  need. 

There  is  manifest  to  him  that  here  is  call  for 
something  beyond  a  man's  own  power  of  self- 
rescue.  There  is  call  for  him  not  to  adopt  a  new 
principle,  but  to  get  aid  from  a  new  person.  That 
rescuing  person  must  be  God  himself  coming  to 
him  for  this  express  purpose.  And  equally  the 
rescuing  person  must  be  human,  coming  not  only 
to  but  into  our  race  in  the  only  possible  way,  by 
birth  as  a  man.  And  this  unique  Rescuer  will  need 
to  furnish  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  forgiveness  of 
sin  and  a  sufficient  potency  to  lift  the  soul  into  a 
new  kind  of  life.  Hence,  when  this  outline  of  gos- 
pel truth  comes  home  to  the  soul,  the  man  instinct- 
ively says,  "  This  is  the  very  kind  of  rescue  and 
this  person  the  very  kind  of  a  Saviour  I  need." 
And  he  opens  his  Bible  anew  and  learns  to  keep  it 
open  as  he  finds  this  Christ  historically  and  doc- 
trinally  revealed.  The  companionship  of  this  Christ 
fills  the  man  with  delight.  The  soul's  own  personal 
eye  sees  him.  He  is  even  better  apprehended  than 
if  one  had  lived  in  Palestine  and  one's  physical  eye 
had  seen  the  literal  Christ.  The  comprehensive 
story  of  that  wonderful  birth,  that  pure  childhood, 
that  dove-sealed  baptism,  that  unique  career  of 
mingled  miracle  and  of  teaching  more  miraculous 
than  any  physical  miracle,  that  infinite  tenderness 


90  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

toward  disciples  and  holy  indignation  toward  all 
doers  of  wrong,  that  uplook  and  that  outlook,  both 
of  them  so  human  and  so  divine,  that  redemptive 
death  and  that  befitting  resurrection,  that  great 
benediction  of  the  outspread  hands  as  he  ascends 
to  his  native  heaven — that  whole  perfectly  finished 
story  of  the  Christ  commends  itself  to  the  moral 
consciousness  of  the  regenerate  soul  with  a  force 
at  least  as  great  and  as  satisfying  as  could  any  most 
logical  demonstration.  "  See  the  Christ  stand !  " 
Here  is  verification.  Here  is  vivification.  Here  is 
the  logic  of  the  heart.  Here  is  the  highest  of  all 
satisfactions.  The  demands  of  the  soul,  far  higher 
in  grade  on  such  a  matter  than  those  of  the  intellect, 
are  met  at  once  and  forever. 

It  is  worth  while  to  notice  how  perfectly  in  some 
of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  the  twofold 
form  of  the  historical  and  of  the  experiential  evi- 
dence for  the  Christian  facts  are  delightfully 
blended. 

Take  as  an  illustration  the  first  Epistle  of  John. 
He  starts  with  the  historic  events  of  which  he  and 
his  brethren  were  the  direct  eye-witnesses.  He 
uses  the  plural  pronoun  "  we  " — i.  e.,  those  who 
saw  Jesus.  But  almost  immediately  he  appeals  to 
those  to  whom  he  is  writing  as  the  "  we."  Then 
once  more  he  names  the  historic  side  of  the  facts, 
and  he  and  his  brother  apostles  are  the  "  we." 
He  returns  speedily  and  settles  back  on  the  experi- 
ential evidences  of  the  historic   facts.     And  now 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE   HISTORIC  SPIRIT  QI 

the  "  we  "  is  that  of  the  Christians  who  had  not 
seen  Christ  in  the  body,  but  had  seen  him  in  spirit- 
ual vision.  He  says,  "We  know  that  we  dwell  in 
him  and  he  in  us."  The  word  "  know  "  is  the  key- 
word of  the  epistle.  He  says,  "  We  know  that  we 
know."  And  he  blends,  curiously  enough,  the  know- 
ing of  God  with  the  knowing  of  Christ,  and  does 
it  so  often  that  he  seems  unconscious  of  any  ques- 
tion that  might  be  raised  about  the  divinity  of  his 
Lord.  He  insists  that  knowing  the  one  is  knowing 
the  other;  and  that  not  to  know  Christ  is  not  to 
know  God.  And  yet  few  of  those  to  whom  he  thus 
wrote  had  had  the  physical  knowledge  of  Jesus. 
This  peculiar  spiritual  knowledge  comes  through 
an  experience  in  the  souls  of  the  believers  as  they 
"  walk  in  the  light."  Apostles  and  their  disciples, 
because  of  experiential  knowledge,  "  know  that  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin." 

Is  there  need  of  quoting  Paul  in  this  connection? 
His  original  knowledge  of  Jesus  may  have  come 
from  popular  report,  and  from  the  testimony  of 
the  martyr  Stephen.  In  those  days  of  his  unre- 
generate  life  he  had  heard  enough  about  the  new 
religion  to  hate  it.  And  it  was  over  a  very  few 
known  facts  that  the  great  persecutor  became  the 
great  apostle.  Subsequently,  he  saw  Peter  and 
James  for  fifteen  days  and  obtained  from  them  what 
they  knew  so  well  about  the  details  in  the  life  of 
the  historic  Christ.  And  yet  further  on  in  Paul's 
career  he  conceived  of  his  Christ  doctrinally.     But 


92  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

at  length  the  historical  and  the  doctrinal  yielded 
in  his  mind  to  the  spiritual  conception.  So  that  in 
all  his  Epistles  his  constant  testimony  concerning  his 
own  belief  and  that  of  his  brethren  has  reference 
to  Christ  as  the  experiential  Christ.  And  the  tone 
is  always,  not  that  of  a  man  who  has  something 
new  to  say  to  believers  about  Christian  fact  or 
doctrine,  but  that  of  one  who  assumes  that  those 
to  whom  he  is  writing  had  apprehended  Christ 
through  this  Christian  consciousness.  Only  by  the 
experiences  of  personal  religion  can  the  great  mass 
of  mankind  come  to  verify  the  Christian  facts.  It 
was  intended  that  our  religion,  having  indeed  a 
foundation  of  substantial  and  well-proven  facts  for 
the  head,  should  make  its  appeal  where  most  it  is 
needed,  i.  e.,  to  the  heart.  So  that  the  plainest 
man  may  know  by  experience  of  personal  religion 
that  the  Bible  is  reliable  in  its  great  facts,  and  that 
these  carry  with  them  the  historicity  of  its  Christ. 
Recognition  is  by  the  heart  as  well  as  by  the  head. 
But  one  may  not  neglect  either  without  loss.  The 
Bible,  addressing  both,  finds  in  both  its  response. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    MORALITY 

There  was  put  into  the  hand  of  the  writer  some 
time  since  a  book  intended  to  show  that  the  Bible 
was  defective  in  its  morality.  Passages  of  the 
Bible,  taken  from  various  parts  of  it,  were  cited. 
Deborah's  ode  and  portions  of  the  Psalms  were 
given  which,  it  was  said,  breathed  a  revengeful 
spirit.  Portions  of  Deuteronomy  and  Leviticus 
were  also  quoted  as  belonging  to  the  Hebrew  code 
of  laws.  And  these,  it  was  claimed,  were  not  only 
obnoxious  in  statement,  but  were  almost  barbarous 
in  their  severity.  Incidents  of  personal  history  were 
also  named  as  immoral  in  tone  and  extremely  ob- 
jectionable in  language.  It  was  said  that  some 
things  were  unsuited  for  reading  in  the  family,  and 
that  no  minister  would  use  them  as  a  Scripture 
lesson  from  the  pulpit.  It  was  insisted  upon 
that  "  these  things  ought  not  to  be  so  much  as 
named  in  a  holy  book  such  as  the  Bible  professes 
to  be." 

But  a  Bible  with  a  historical  department  in  it, 
that  did  "  not  so  much  as  mention "  any  sin  or 
expose  any  evil  might  be  a  good  enough  Bible  for 
some  other  kind  of  a  world,  but  by  that  very 
omission  it  would  be  no  Bible  for  such  a  world  as 

93 


94  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

this  in  which  we  live.  The  Bible  must  name  evil, 
that  it  may  denounce  it.  It  must  record  certain 
events  in  order  not  only  to  exhibit  their  wrongful- 
ness, but  to  show  how  God  is  constantly  outworking 
and  overruling  all  things  for  good  in  the  end.  And 
as  to  the  objectionable  words  in  Deuteronomy  and 
Leviticus,  it  should  be  noted  that  they  occur  in 
what  may  be  called  the  law  books  of  the  Bible. 
In  such  books  vices  and  crimes  must  be  defined, 
that  they  may  be  forbidden;  they  must  be  particu- 
larly described,  and  the  very  language  has  to  be 
unmistakable.  They  are  not  reading  for  very  young 
people  any  more  than  are  the  "  Revised  Statutes  " 
or  the  "  Criminal  Code  "  in  our  American  law-books 
of  to-day.  But  those  laws  should  have  a  place  in 
biblical  records,  for  they  are,  with  new  adaptations 
to  modern  conditions,  the  basis  of  the  jurisprudence 
of  the  civilized  world. 

As  to  the  alleged  severity  in  the  Hebrew  law- 
books, the  comparison  of  them  with  the  lately  dis- 
covered "  Code  of  Hammurabi,"  king  of  the  Am- 
orites,  will  show  the  superior  mercifulness  of  the 
Hebrew  code.  As  to  the  taste  that  condemns  some 
of  the  biblical  language  as  offensive,  it  may  be  said 
that  tastes  change  almost  as  rapidly  as  fashions. 
They  feel  the  literary,  social,  and  religious  trend  of 
the  changing  centuries.  And  this  matter  of  taste  in 
the  use  of  descriptive  words  is  of  great  significance 
as  showing  that  the  books  were  written  in  the  re- 
spective ages  to  which  they  lay  claim.    These  words, 


THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    MORALITY  95 

not  now  indeed  used,  seem  to  show  the  "  water- 
marks "  of  their  time.  Homer  would  omit  some 
words  were  he  writing  to-day.  But  it  is  a  source 
of  delight  to  those  who  study  him  that  he  used 
often  the  plain  blunt  words  of  his  own  time.  Our 
Shakespeare  only  a  few  centuries  ago  used  descrip- 
tive words  that  he  would  not  employ  in  this  century. 
Taste  varies  with  the  times,  so  that  a  mode  of 
speech  delicate  at  one  time  may  be  offensive  at 
another.  Nevertheless,  in  ancient  documents  we 
want  the  literary  flavor  of  the  age  in  which  they 
were  written. 

As  to  some  of  the  psalms  and  Deborah's  ode, 
it  is  to  be  said  that  they  are  the  strongly  voiced 
war-songs  of  their  time;  and  belonging  to  that 
peculiar  kind  of  literature,  are  to  be  judged,  as 
are  war-songs  of  our  own  age,  with  that  fact  in 
view.  They  are  the  genuine  report  of  the  state  of 
national  feeling  at  the  time  when  composed.  And 
we  must  also  remember  that  in  these  imprecatory 
psalms  the  psalmist  speaks  not  so  much  personally 
as  officially.  He  voices  the  verdict  of  the  civil 
judge.  For  the  nation  was  a  theocracy,  i.  e.,  a  gov- 
ernment in  which  God  was  not  only  the  God  of  the 
religious  life,  but  the  civil  ruler — the  one  who  ought 
to  execute  the  penalties  of  the  law.  The  men  against 
whom  these  psalms  fulminate  such  declarations 
were  deemed  the  enemies  of  God.  As  to  the 
Canaanites,  Israel's  foe  in  the  land,  it  was  war  on 
both  sides  to  the  death.     No  wonder  the  language 


g6  THE    MATURE    MANS   DIFFICULTIES 

was  strong;  was  even  bitter.  The  underlying  feel- 
ing that  throbs  through  the  words  is  that  in  national 
affairs  a  bitter  injustice  demands  a  bitter  civil 
punishment. 

It  may  be  asked,  "  How  about  divine  inspiration 
in  such  cases  ?  "  The  same  question  is  asked  about 
God's  providences  as  seen  not  only  in  war,  modern 
as  well  as  ancient,  but  in  pestilence  and  in  earth- 
quake. To  shut  God  out  from  all  that  has  a  tinge 
of  evil  in  it  is  to  shut  out  God  altogether,  in  our 
thought  and  feeling,  from  the  world's  rulership. 
The  literature  of  these  things  is  no  more  objection- 
able than  the  fact  of  them,  the  story  of  them  than 
are  the  evil  events  themselves.  Only  let  it  be  no- 
ticed that  such  literature  has  its  limits  of  age  and 
time.  One  would  not  justify  the  language  of  an 
imprecatory  psalm  if  written  to-day.  It  suited  a 
former  time.  And  one  can  justify  the  moral  in- 
dignation at  heathenish  hatred  and  abominable  cru- 
elty— compared  with  which  the  severest  psalm  is 
almost  merciful.  The  historical  story  of  such  events 
is  to  be  judged  of  in  quite  another  way  from  that 
of  the  literature  found  in  a  doctrinal  epistle.  The 
poetic  mood,  alike  in  writer  and  reader,  differs 
widely  from  that  required  in  the  composition  and 
the  study  of  the  Gospels  or  the  Acts.  Each  form 
of  inspired  literature  has  its  own  method  and  its 
own  principle  of  interpretation.  One  must  put  him- 
self in  the  place  of  the  writer  to  interpret  correctly; 
and  above  all,  must  see  what  God  was  especially 


THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    MORALITY  97 

teaching  men  at  that  time  in  permitting  such  events 
to  occur. 

Men  who  have  passed  on  through  various  moods 
of  mind  and  under  various  experiences  in  life  can 
testify  to  the  usefulness  to  them  of  portions  of  the 
Scriptures  which  did  not  once  commend  themselves. 
Doctrines  of  religion,  taken  on  trust  because  found 
in  the  Bible,  have  proved  to  be  sheet-anchors  in 
time  of  storm.  Expressions  in  psalm  and  prophecy 
that  seemed  almost  startling  at  former  times  have 
been  none  too  strong  at  subsequent  periods  to  ex- 
press moral  indignation  at  terrible  outrage  and  in- 
human wrong.  And  men  have  been  glad  to  have 
inspired  sanction  for  the  utterance  of  fit  words  of 
the  strongest  possible  condemnation  for  abominable 
iniquity.  There  may  be  verses  of  the  Scripture 
up  to  which  a  man  has  not  come  in  his  experience 
as  yet. 

One  form  of  the  morality  of  the  Bible  is  shown 
in  its  treatment  of  bold,  bad  men.  They  are  not  set 
up  for  imitation,  but  for  abhorrence.  The  Bible 
does  not  go  out  of  its  way  to  find  them.  When  it 
has  to  meet  them  it  knows  them.  It  transfixes  them 
as  with  a  dart.  It  pinions  them  to  the  wall.  They 
hang  there  for  the  gaze  of  the  generations.  There 
is  no  mistaking  the  Nemesis.  Nay,  it  is  not  Neme- 
sis, the  wrath  of  the  avenging  deities,  but  the  pure 
white  indignation  of  a  holy  God  that  brings  about 
the  punitive  result.  The  wicked  man  prospers  only 
for  a  time.    He  spreads  himself  "  like  a  green  bay- 

G 


98  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

tree."  But  soon  when  sought  "  he  cannot  be 
found."  Nor  is  evanescence  all.  Judas  "  goes  to 
his  own  place,"  and  Jesus  writes  his  eternal  epi- 
taph: "  Good  were  it  for  that  man  if  he  had  never 
been  born." 

And  the  faults  of  good  men  are  exhibited  in  this 
honest  mirror.  Some  men  with  reference  to  some 
special  thing  are  called  "perfect";  but  the  limita- 
tion to  the  particular  act  shows  what  is  meant  by  the 
word.  The  good  men  are  good  about  the  matter 
under  discussion.  No  man  has  outgrown  the  pe- 
tition in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  "  Forgive  us."  The 
objector,  quoting  the  deception  of  Abraham  and 
the  impatience  of  Moses  and  the  incontinence  of 
David,  says,  "  These  are  your  good  men  and  they 
are  guilty  of  scandalous  sin."  But  these  men  are 
never  put  forward  as  models  in  all  virtue.  Enough 
for  the  purpose  of  the  writer,  if  they  have  a  single 
prominent  excellence.  There  is  only  one  model 
man.  David  is  called  a  "  man  after  God's  own 
heart " ;  but  it  was  only  about  one  thing  and  at  one 
time  that  this  commendation  was  given  him.  The 
results  of  his  great  sin  are  seen  on  the  sacred  page. 
They  followed  him  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  Men 
reproach  David's  memory  who  forget  how  he  re- 
proaches himself.  In  the  Fifty-first  psalm  he  moans 
and  sobs  out  his  penitence  until  every  sensi- 
tive soul  in  the  world  pities  him.  And  this  psalm 
bears  witness  to  the  austere  morality  of  a  Book 
that  will  not  screen  a  man  who,  though  in  the  main 


THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    MORALITY  99 

a  good  man,  is  guilty  of  a  great  sin  against  God, 
against  his  brother  official,  and  against  the  whole 
nation  of  which  he  was  the  head.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  but  for  the  strenuous  honesty  of 
the  Book  the  world  at  large  had  never  known  of 
David's  sin  and  penitence.  This  Book  is  a  mirror, 
and  it  reflects  faithfully  the  mistakes  of  good  men 
as  well  as  their  virtues.  The  Book  is  perfect  in  its 
record  of  the  imperfections  of  its  best  friends. 
This  is  the  sublime  austerity  of  the  highest  possible 
morality. 

There  is  the  further  inquiry  concerning  the  abso- 
lute morality  enjoined  and  the  relative  morality 
practised  by  the  men  of  the  Hebrew  State.  After 
the  establishment  of  the  nation  there  was  a  State 
religion.  But  national  religion,  the  keeping  of 
feasts  and  fasts,  the  observances  of  holy  days,  and 
especially  of  the  Sabbath  Day,  the  exact  ritualistic 
worship  of  the  temple,  the  whole  sociologic  ar- 
rangement— was  made  very  prominent  when  the 
people  entered  Canaan.  By  degrees  the  people 
came  to  think  these  things  the  all  of  religion.  Sin 
was  the  transgression  of  ecclesiastical  law  and  was 
more  a  matter  of  sociological  and  national  than  of 
personal  wrong.  There  were  indeed  some  who  saw 
the  spiritual  requirement  in  the  law.  But  most  of 
the  people  gloried  in  nationality,  and  served  God, 
as  far  as  they  served  him  at  all,  on  the  sociological 
principle.  And  yet  even  in  that  old  collectivism 
one  great  fact  stood  out  prominently.     It  was  the 


IOO  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

conception,  the  constant  recognition,  of  God.  In 
the  book  of  Leviticus  after  nearly  every  command 
we  read,  "  For  I  am  the  Lord,  thy  God."  And 
this  God's  one  characteristic,  to  which  all  his  attri- 
butes and  all  his  perfections  did  obeisance,  was 
his  righteousness,  i.  e.,  his  eternal  and  unchanging 
sense  of  Tightness.  The  Hebrew  nation  was  to  do 
right  not  only  because  it  was  right  in  itself,  but 
more  especially  because  he  commanded  it.  It  was 
to  do  right  because  he  had  supreme  regard  to  the 
right.  Such  a  God  worshiped — and  the  God  wor- 
shiped in  any  age  becomes  a  model — there  was  ever- 
more before  the  Hebrews  the  infinite  model  of  all 
possible  righteousness. 

And  the  appeal  went  out,  through  Hebrew  voices, 
to  all  mankind  to  do  right.  It  was  assumed  that 
all  men  knew  that  both  right  and  wrong  exist,  and 
that  there  is  a  fundamental  distinction  between 
them.  And  the  recognition  of  this  essential  dis- 
tinction is  shown  not  to  depend  at  all  upon  the 
civilization  of  an  age  or  of  a  nation.  The  axioms 
in  mathematics  are  the  same  for  the  boy  in  his 
first  arithmetic  and  for  the  advanced  student  in  the 
calculus.  Pure  mathematics  and  applied  mathe- 
matics, however,  do  vary,  since  the  application  is 
probably  always  somewhat  imperfect.  In  the  ap- 
plication of  pure  law  to  imperfect  men  living  in  the 
imperfect  conditions  of  human  society,  there  ap- 
pears often  a  wide  chasm  between  the  right  itself 
and  the  extent  to  which  it  is  seen,  and  when  seen, 


THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    MORALITY  IOI 

acted  upon,  even  in  the  case  of  those  who  want  to 
know  and  do  "  the  right."  The  prophetic  religion 
in  Israel  was  always  far  in  advance  of  the  popular 
practice  of  it.  There  was  high  requirement,  but 
there  was  a  scanty  degree  of  obedience,  as  is  mani- 
fest in  the  historic  facts  of  the  national  life.  It  is 
the  lofty  commandment,  not  the  disregard  of  it, 
that  is  to  be  considered  in  any  estimate  of  the 
unique  biblical  morality.  What  special  things  are 
right  in  given  circumstances  is  always  a  question 
in  casuistry  to  which  honest  men  may  give  different 
answers.  This,  however,  instead  of  disproving  the 
reality  of  "  the  right  in  itself,"  only  certifies  more 
strongly  its  existence  by  setting  men  at  work  in 
seeking  the  just  application  of  the  principle  itself. 
If  "  the  right "  were  a  set  of  rules  for  the  outward 
life  only,  then  the  matter  would  be  easy.  But  the 
right  is  a  set  of  principles  to  be  applied  individually. 
It  follows  that  "  the  right  thing  considered  only  as 
an  outward  act "  varies  with  the  occasion,  with  the 
amount  of  knowledge,  and  with  the  capacity  of  the 
man.  It  is  affected  by  the  personality  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  degree  of  civilization  and  by  the 
popular  estimates  of  the  age  in  which  the  man 
lives.  Many  an  act  done  by  a  good  man  in  the 
early  biblical  ages  we  should  sharply  condemn  to- 
day. Were  the  man  living  he  would  condemn  such 
acts  as  earnestly  as  we  are  wont  to  do.  His  prin- 
ciple of  doing  "  the  right,"  as  he  saw  it,  gave  him 
one  course  of  resulting  conduct  in  his  own  day.    It 


102  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

would  insure  very  unlike  conduct,  were  he  living  in 
our  own  times.  Remembering  this  very  important 
consideration,  we  are  to  let  our  light  be  not  a  little 
shaded  before  we  allow  it  to  fall  on  the  men  of 
former  times.  And  this  is  especially  true  when  we 
come  to  judge  men  of  the  past  who  are  depicted  in 
a  book  so  honest  with  the  faults  of  good  men  as 
is  the  Old  Testament. 

But  as  the  centuries  go  on  we  discern  progress  in 
the  morality  of  biblical  characters.  Their  aspira- 
tions are  Godward.  Steadily  their  conduct  grows 
more  consistent  with  the  eternal  principles  of  right- 
eousness. And  thus  God  was  able  to  use  men, 
even  though  they  were  imperfect,  since  they  were 
right  at  heart.  He  had  his  man  when  some  special 
attribute  or  perfection  of  his  nature  needed  to  be 
presented  to  the  world.  When  men  were  swiftly 
advancing  in  a  special  virtue  he  could  use  them, 
and  when  deteriorating  he  could  still  give  mani- 
festations that  met  the  existing  need  of  judgment. 
And  yet,  taken  as  a  whole,  there  is  a  significant 
advancement  of  morals  parallel  with  advancement 
of  religious  knowledge  and  experience.  Recalling 
the  acknowledged  fact  that  in  our  own  land  only 
one  hundred  years  ago  certain  questions  of  out- 
ward morality  were  seen  in  a  different  light  from 
that  in  which  we  now  regard  them,  we  can  look 
with  a  modified  gaze  on  the  outward  morality  of 
the  good  men  of  two  or  three  millenniums  ago. 
"  Essential  right "  has  never  altered,  but  "  applied 


THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    MORALITY  IO3 

right  "  is  ever  in  process  of  advancement  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures. 

Few  studies  are  more  instructive  than  that  of  the 
processes  through  which  good  men  in  any  age  have 
come  to  clearer  views  of  righteousness  as  it  stands 
in  God's  mind.  His  method  seems  to  be  not  to  work 
through  the  mob,  but  through  the  man.  He  calls 
out  the  individual  from  the  mass  and  then  uses 
him  for  the  good  of  the  people.  He  has  worked 
through  great  personalities.  Such  men  he  has  em- 
ployed to  gather  up  the  broken  rays  of  his  single 
and  separate  revelations  and  focus  them  on  a  given 
moral  issue.  He  has  had  his  man  who  has  lifted 
in  his  name  the  moral  standard  as  against  an 
existing  evil.  True  in  all  history,  this  is  especially 
true  in  the  story  of  Israel.  God  has  had  men  who 
were  prophets,  not  only  in  their  predictive  words, 
but  in  their  utterances  before  the  people.  And  they 
have  spoken  as  in  the  direct  presence  of  God.  They 
have  declared  the  eternal  principles  of  righteousness 
and  insisted  that  men  should  apply  them  more  and 
more  fully  to  practical  conduct.  Isaiah  with  trum- 
pet tongue,  Jeremiah  with  his  infinite  pathos,  and 
Ezekiel  with  his  inspired  visions  are  still  bearing 
their  testimony  to  mankind  in  favor  of  righteous- 
ness. And  the  story  of  these  appeals  given  in  the 
Bible  is  proof  of  its  high  standard  of  morality. 

The  Scriptures,  moreover,  contain  wonderful  bi- 
ographies of  thoroughly  good  men.  It  is  as  if  one 
were  passing  through  a  vast  picture  gallery  hung 


104  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

on  every  side  with  portraits  of  illustrious  souls  of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy.  Sometimes  we 
have  the  full-length  portrait,  sometimes  an  outline 
etching;  but  in  either  case  the  picture  is  distinctive. 
You  know  the  man  by  his  characteristic  excellence. 
A  friend  of  the  writer  has  a  great  admiration  for 
the  genius  of  Napoleon.  He  has  filled  the  shelves 
of  his  library  with  volumes  about  him,  and  the 
walls  are  hung  with  his  portraits.  He  says  that  he 
knows  every  trait  of  Napoleon's  character  and  the 
varying  ambitions  of  his  eventful  life;  that  on  hear- 
ing any  sentiment  attributed  to  Napoleon  he  can 
judge  correctly  whether  he  did  or  did  not  utter  it; 
that  the  gestures  of  the  hand,  the  upward  or  down- 
ward corners  of  his  mouth,  his  way  of  carrying  him- 
self in  camp  and  in  court,  are  all  familiar  to  him. 
This  knowledge  has  brought  Napoleon  so  near  to 
him  that  the  separating  years  seem  to  depart,  and  he 
almost  feels  that  the  great  military  hero  is  alive 
to-day. 

Somewhat  so  it  is  to  those  who  have  spent  years 
in  studying  these  great  moral  heroes  of  the  olden 
time.  They  live  in  one's  thought  and  feeling.  Each 
has  his  own  excellence.  Each  filled  his  own  place. 
Even  when  only  a  stroke  or  two  of  the  limner  was 
given,  each  stands  out  in  his  own  personality.  This 
one  shows  exceeding  loveliness  of  character,  another 
exhibits  a  noble  courage.  Here  is  a  man  of  heroic 
endeavor  and  there  a  man  of  patient  endurance. 
In  every  case  it  is  a  life  lived  in  the  light  that  shines 


THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    MORALITY  105 

down  upon  man  from  above — the  light  of  that  God 
who  had  given  the  man  a  work  to  do.  Together 
they  make  up  a  galaxy  of  glory  in  the  moral  firma- 
ment. The  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Hebrews  is  the 
roll  call  of  the  holy  dead.  Each  man  is  cited  as 
an  example  of  faith — faith  in  the  nearest  of  God's 
promises.  And  that  faith  showed  what  each  would 
have  done  had  the  historic  Christ  been  presented ; 
and  so  they  were  all  accepted  of  God  as  if  believers 
in  Christ.  And  thus,  through  faith  coming  into  the 
kingdom  of  God,  there  was  given  to  each  some 
single  virtue  in  the  realm  of  righteousness  to  exhibit 
to  the  wide  world  of  mankind. 

It  is  also  a  remarkable  thing  that  the  Bible  fur- 
nishes the  needed  moral  dynamic.  Ethical  rules 
have  abounded  in  all  ages.  Men  have  always  known 
better  than  they  have  done.  To  get  them  to  do 
is  the  great  thing.  To  furnish  them  impulse  in 
right  doing  is  the  problem.  Motive  is  needed.  The 
engine  on  your  railway  is  a  model  as  a  piece  of 
mechanism.  But  unless  you  can  fire  the  heart  under 
that  boiler  and  send  the  steam  through  those  iron 
veins  and  set  that  piston  in  motion,  your  splendid 
mechanism  will  not  move  a  rod  along  the  carefully 
laid  rails.  The  Bible  tells  how  to  bring  about  this 
needed  moral  motion.  It  reveals  a  Person  once 
living  among  us,  and  still  living  for  us.  When  he 
left  us  he  promised  a  spiritual  force  as  a  dynamic 
— and  that  force  he  called  "  the  Holy  Spirit." 
As  Christ  had  come  into  human  history,  so  this 


106  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

Spirit  was  to  come  into  the  human  heart.  Taking 
the  truth  as  given  by  Christ,  the  Spirit  was  to  gen- 
erate through  it,  a  new  life  in  the  deepest  depth  of 
the  believing  disciple.  The  dynamic  was  to  up- 
heave. Old  foundations  were  to  be  destroyed  and 
new  ones  laid,  and  on  them  a  new  structure  built. 
This  work  was,  after  Christ's  death  for  remission, 
the  one  thing  needed  above  all  else  for  the  individual 
man ;  and  then,  through  the  multitude  of  individual 
Christians,  the  whole  wide  world,  socially,  politic- 
ally, and  religiously,  was  to  be  blessed.  And  with 
the  revelation  of  a  holy  God,  a  holy  Christ,  and  a 
holy  Spirit,  through  the  pages  of  the  Bible,  that 
volume  must  necessarily  be  of  the  most  exalted 
morals. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    METHOD 

A  gentleman  of  large  leisure  and  of  literary 
tastes,  who  had  read  many  books,  and  among  them 
occasionally  his  Bible,  gives  his  general  idea  of  the 
book  on  this  wise :  "  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Bible 
in  its  Old  Testament  is  a  collection  of  Hebrew 
pamphlets  and  poems,  and  the  New  Testament  a 
collection  of  biographical  incidents  about  Jesus 
Christ,  and  also  of  stray  letters  incidentally  written 
and  accidentally  preserved.  I  do  not  recognize  any 
literary  plan  that  has  been  carefully  followed  out." 

This  gentleman  was  something  of  an  architect. 
He  thought  and  spoke  in  architectural  terms.  He 
judged  of  the  Bible  as  if  it  were  a  building  with 
its  foundations  well  laid,  its  basement  set  on  those 
foundations,  and  the  structure  rising  story  above 
story,  according  to  the  blue-print  the  architect  puts 
into  the  builder's  hands.  But  he  was  altogether 
wrong  in  that  he  did  not  see  that  the  Bible  was 
not  modeled  after  a  structure  made  by  man,  but 
rather  was  like  God's  work  elsewhere,  a  growth — 
a  growth  as  from  a  seed,  up  and  on  through  ger- 
mination, through  stock  and  twig  and  blossom  and 
fruitage.  Man's  way  is  to  build  a  dead  thing; 
God's  way  is  to  make  a  live  thing,  with  power  to 

107 


108  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

grow.  And  this  growth  is  the  underlying  idea  of 
the  whole  volume.  In  studying  the  Bible  you  have 
not  a  problem  in  mechanics,  but  you  are  in  contact 
with  something  that  has  in  it  that  mysterious  thing 
we  call  life.  Its  own  definition  of  itself  is,  "  The 
word  of  God  is  quick,"  i.  e.,  alive.  It  is  alive  with 
mental  and  moral  life. 

Other  methods  in  which  God  might  have  com- 
municated his  will  are  certainly  conceivable.  But 
his  chosen  method  here,  in  consonance  with  all  his 
higher  workings  elsewhere,  is  to  be  carefully  noted, 
in  asking  for  the  plan  of  the  Bible.  It  has  no  re- 
semblance to  the  building  of  a  palace,  but  rather 
to  the  progressive  stages  in  the  growth  of  the  plant. 
So  too,  we  must  remember — as  my  friend  above 
named  did  not — that  worthy  literature  is  always  a 
growth.  And  for  God  to  fail  in  adapting  himself  to 
this  obvious  law  of  literary  life  when  making  a  book 
for  men  and  through  men,  in  which  he  was  to  re- 
veal himself  would  be  unlike  all  we  know  about 
him.  He  could  have  given  a  book  consisting  of 
truths  to  be  believed  and  of  rules  to  be  practised. 
But  that  would  have  been  a  creed,  or  at  most,  a 
series  of  ethical  rules,  but  not  a  Bible.  So  given, 
it  would  be  unlike  anything  else  God  has  ever  done. 
Such  a  method — perhaps  possible — would  have 
been  at  the  very  first  glance  suspicious.  Let  us  be 
glad  of  the  method  that  permits  growth  in  events 
that  reveal  God;  and  growth  also,  corresponding 
to  human  progress,  in  the  literary  art,  so  that  under 


THE    BIBLE   AND    ITS    METHOD  KX) 

divine  guidance  these  successive  manifestations  can 
be  duly  chronicled.  Had  God  revealed  himself  all 
at  once — so  to  say — at  the  outset  of  human  history, 
immediately  after  human  sin,  he  would  so  far  from 
being  understood  have  been  completely  misunder- 
stood. The  revelation  would  have  dazzled  and  con- 
founded. Too  much  brightness  is  darkness  to  the 
human  eye.  The  God  of  the  Bible  had  his  plan  here 
as  well  as  in  nature.  He  laid  out  the  work,  seeing 
the  end  from  the  beginning.  The  Old  Testament 
and  the  New  Testament  could  not  change  places. 
Neither  has  completeness  without  the  other; 
together  they  reveal  God. 

I.  God's  plan  is  that  of  a  progressive  revelation 
and  of  a  progressive  record  of  it.  We  have  a  book 
recording  a  series  of  connected  and  advancing  reve- 
lations about  the  God  it  names  in  its  opening  words. 
"  In  the  beginning,  God."  And  from  the  first  verse 
to  the  last  it  never  loses  sight  of  him.  The  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  is  an  evolutionary  chapter.  And 
the  evolution  is  God's  evolution  in  his  manifestation 
of  himself.  He  is  the  one  who  plans  and  executes. 
There  is  not  a  trace  of  that  materialism  that  finds 
"  a  resident  potency  in  things  to  evolve  themselves." 
In  the  great  prologue  of  that  first  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis a  single  statement  covers  God's  creative  activity.' 
And  there  follows  instantly  the  story  of  specific 
acts — always  in  a  progressive  series.  God  is  rep- 
resented as  changing  chaos  into  cosmos.    He  starts 


110  THE    MATURE    MANS   DIFFICULTIES 

life.  He  introduces  successive  kinds  of  life.  There 
is  constant  unfolding  of  plan.  Sometimes  by  steady 
growth,  sometimes  by  vast  convulsions,  he  reveals 
his  thought,  afterward  to  be  studied  by  the  inter- 
pretative mind  of  the  man  whom  he  would  create. 

Presently  human  literature,  spoken  and  written, 
begins.  Then  comes  the  unique  method  of  God. 
It  is  to  employ  the  successive  forms  of  literature 
that  men  should  use  through  the  ages.  The  story 
of  Genesis  has  the  peculiar  aroma  of  the  age  in 
which  it  professes  to  be  written.  Its  author,  evi- 
dently aware  of  both  Babylonian  and  Egyptian 
theories,  has  access  to  the  scattered  monotheistic 
traditions  of  his  Hebrew  ancestry.  He  may  have 
had  scraps  from  an  age  even  then  so  remote  as 
that  of  Abraham.  And  we  are  permitted  to  believe 
that  the  God  who  had  ordained  this  progressive 
revelation  of  himself  and  his  doings  among  men 
would  not  permit  the  story  of  it  to  perish  through 
lack  of  fit  record.  If  it  was  worth  while  to  order 
the  events,  it  was  worth  while  to  order  the  story 
of  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  coming  ages.  The 
whole  procession  of  these  events  would  have 
significance  as  long  as  the  world  should  endure. 

At  once,  after  these  primal  revelations  were 
made,  the  worship  of  God  began.  And  the  story 
traces  the  continued  unfoldings  and  the  successive 
recognitions.  When  we  pass  out  of  the  era  of  the 
early  annalists  as  collected  in  the  earliest  books 
into  the  time  of  statutory  enactment,  there  is  the 

\ 


THE    BIBLE   AND    ITS    METHOD  III 

use  of  new  literary  forms.  The  older  aroma  gives 
place  to  the  newer  fragrance.  Then  come  sketches 
of  civil  institutions  and  ritualistic  requirements,  and 
the  story  has  again  the  mannerisms  of  the  more 
advanced  age.  The  literary  methods  are  as  unlike 
to  those  of  Genesis  as  they  are  to  our  modern  his- 
toric methods.  The  point  of  view  is  unchanged. 
It  is  still  the  history  of  God's  self-revelations.  But 
new  names  of  the  Deity,  drawn  from  the  new  facts 
of  history  and  from  human  want  and  supply,  ap- 
pear on  the  historic  page.  The  growth  in  event  and 
in  record  is  for  the  most  part  steady.  But  as  in 
nature,  so  it  is  in  the  more  direct  literary  revela- 
tion ;  the  regularity  sometimes  is  interrupted.  There 
are  eras  of  special  moral  activity.  Neither  geology 
nor  revelation  presents  an  absolutely  unbroken  con- 
tinuity in  development.  We  have  to  own  in  geology 
"  special  eras."  We  must  also  own  that  in  revela- 
tion sometimes  more  spiritual  progress  is  made  in 
a  single  century,  both  in  the  matter  revealed  and  in 
the  manner  of  its  record,  than  in  any  that  preceded 
or  followed. 

II.  God's  method  of  giving  a  revelation  permits 
him  to  use  the  various  methods  of  Hebrew  literature. 
The  "  Psalms  of  David  "  and  those  classed  as  "  Da- 
vidic,"  because  if  he  did  not  inspire  the  original 
theme,  his  own  songs  supplied  the  model,  were 
of  special  value  in  a  very  distinct  form  of  divine 
self-revelation.     In  them  God  speaks  to  man  and 


112  THE   MATURE    MANS   DIFFICULTIES 

man  to  God,  and  so  intimate  is  the  communion  that 
often  it  is  hard  to  tell  which  heart  is  more  open 
to  the  other — the  heart  of  man  to  God  or  the  heart 
of  God  to  the  heart  of  man.  Sometimes  the  two 
meet  in  the  same  verse,  and  the  soul  is  so  near  to 
God  that  it  seems  almost  to  do  as  does  a  weary 
bird  when  it  nestles  quietly  in  the  hand  that  gently 
holds  it. 

Exceedingly  unlike  to  the  literature  of  the  Psalms 
is  that  of  the  "  wisdom  literature,"  as  found  in 
such  books  as  the  "  Proverbs."  The  human  author 
of  that  book  seems  to  have  culled  the  wisdom  of 
the  ages.  He  took  the  chief  portable  wisdom  of 
the  wisest  of  the  ages,  as  men  take  ore  from  a  mine. 
He  stamped  it  with  his  own  superscription  and  then 
issued  it  for  circulation  in  the  currency  of  the  wide 
world.  He  found  the  proverb  a  shrewd  saying  of 
merely  secular  wisdom,  but  he  left  it  a  religious 
utterance  to  be  used  by  all  the  generations  of  living 
men.  He  found  it  only  a  dead  morality — a  mere 
tombstone  epitaph;  but  he  gave  it  resurrection  and 
put  into  it  an  eternal  spiritual  life  and  made  it  teach 
the  whole  human  race  that  the  "  fear  of  God  is  the 
beginning  of  wisdom."  And  in  every  age  there 
have  been  men  whose  attention  has  been  detained  by 
those  proverbs  as  by  no  other  book  in  the  Bible. 

Even  dramatic  literature  is  pressed  into  religious 
service.  Founded  upon  actual  fact,  most  likely,  in 
the  books  of  Job  and  Jonah,  we  have  teaching 
thrown   into  the  dramatic   form  of   question  and 


THE    BIBLE   AND    ITS    METHOD  II3 

answer,  of  assertion  and  response.  And  noble  con- 
clusions, as  historic  facts  are  set  forth  by  person- 
ages who  occupy  dramatic  situations,  are  drawn  as 
to  God's  care  over  individual  life  and  as  to  his 
tender  mercy  to  men  who  repent  and  turn  to  God. 

And  here  in  these  two  books,  dramatic  in  form, 
we  may  not  for  a  moment  overlook  the  fact  that 
these  are  a  part  of  a  volume  which  is  professedly 
a  revelation  concerning  God  rather  than  a  history 
of  man's  ideas  about  God.  The  history  given  in 
Job  and  Jonah,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  Bible,  is  that 
of  God  in  his  dealings  with  men,  and  not  merely 
that  of  man  in  the  natural  development  of  his  re- 
ligious ideas.  This  latter  thing  is  merely  incidental 
to  the  main  plan  and  object  of  the  Bible.  Biblical 
history  is  not  the  history  of  man's  opinions  of  God, 
but  of  God's  historic  revelations  of  himself.  In 
the  Old  Testament  the  constant  affirmation  is  that 
these  things  were  done  "  that  they  might  know 
that  I  am  the  Lord  " :  and  in  the  New  Testament, 
after  reciting  the  Christian  facts,  it  is  said  these 
events  occurred,  "  that  they  might  know  thee,  the 
only  true  God  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast 
sent."  The  humanly  "  historic  method  "  must  not 
be  suffered  to  displace  the  divinely  historic  method 
in  the  biblical  literature. 

The  whole  line  of  progress,  not  only  in  the  events, 
but  in  the  story  of  them,  is  especially  remarkable. 
Not  a  single  historic  book  can  be  spared  from  the 
biblical  collection.     Certainly  we  need  the  Genesis; 

H 


114  THE   MATURE    MANS   DIFFICULTIES 

and  the  Exodus,  with  its  central  fact  of  the  giving 
of  the  Sinaitic  law,  must  not  be  omitted.  And  the 
details  of  that  law  as  applied  to  civic  and  social 
conditions  which  are  given  in  Leviticus,  we  could 
not  spare.  And  this  is  fitly  followed  by  Numbers, 
with  its  story  of  the  forty  years  of  the  results  of 
that  legislation  and  with  the  narrative  of  the  wan- 
derings and  the  entrance  into  Canaan.  Deuter- 
onomy, showing  God's  moral  purposes  in  all  that 
had  preceded,  occupies  its  appropriate  place.  Joshua 
and  Judges  tell  the  political  and  social  and  religious 
history  of  the  stormy  time  which  compelled,  at 
length,  the  establishment  of  the  kingly  rule  of  Saul 
and  David  and  Solomon  as  told  from  different 
points  of  view  in  Kings  and  Samuel.  These  his- 
torical books  are  the  background  making  intelligible 
the  psalmist's  songs,  the  wisdom  literature,  and  the 
prophecies  that,  if  they  touched  immediate  times, 
had  for  their  ultimate  object  the  heralding  of  the 
coming  Christ.  And  the  interdependence  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New  is  abundantly  shown 
in  the  book  of  the  Hebrews.  The  Gospels  give  the 
Christian  facts,  the  Acts  show  the  facts  applied, 
and  the  Epistles  tell  the  results  in  the  Christian 
churches  to  which  they  were  directed.  We  have  no 
chance  collection  of  rags  and  tatters,  unmethodical, 
unrelated,  irresponsible.  Alike  in  Old  Testament 
and  in  New  there  is  steady  progress  unto  ultimate 
culmination.  Using  all  the  forms  of  literature 
known  in  its  times,  there  is  in  every  part  of  the 


THE    BIBLE   AND    ITS    METHOD  II5 

volume  the  witness  to  one  completed  scheme,  one 
pervasive  thought,  one  distinct  purpose ;  and  there 
is  absolute  success  in  gaining  one  desired  end.  Thus 
the  Bible  comes  to  its  grand  culmination  in  the  story 
of  the  Christ  himself,  told  in  its  outer  narrative 
form  in  the  four  Gospels  and  in  its  inner  form  of 
divine  doctrinal  meaning  in  apostolic  Epistles,  thus 
furnishing  a  volume  to  which,  under  penalty  named 
in  the  book  of  Revelation,  nothing  can  be  added 
and  from  which  nothing  may  be  taken. 

And  this  method  of  growth  in  biblical  revelation 
suits  itself  to  the  child  in  his  growth  up  from  his 
childhood.  A  child  is  born — as  God  would  have 
every  child  born — in  answer  to  prayer;  and  this 
child  is  ushered  into  a  home,  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  which  is  religious.  Almost  before  the  watchful 
parents  are  ready  for  it,  the  child  begins  to  ask 
about  God — "  who  he  is,"  "  what  he  is,"  "  where 
he  is."  Your  child  is  a  born  theologian,  and  never 
in  any  world  will  he  cease  to  theologize.  It  is  some- 
times proposed  to  keep  all  theology — i.  e.,  knowl- 
edge about  God — away  from  children  and  "  to  teach 
them  the  virtues  of  justice,  kindness,  truthfulness, 
etc.,  until  thirteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age."  But 
your  child  cannot  help  asking  theological  questions 
that  go  to  the  very  root  of  things. 

Nor  is  the  plea  of  worth  that  he  cannot  under- 
stand these  things  so  well  as  the  simple  virtues. 
For  while  you  may  use  the  words  "  kindness  "  and 
"  justice,"  the  application  of  these  virtues  to  practi- 


Il6  THE   MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

cal  life  is  often  one  of  the  greatest  difficulty.  What 
is  "  right  "  in  a  given  case,  what  is  "  justice,"  what 
is  "  kindness  "  in  certain  circumstances  ?  These  are 
questions  in  casuistry  that  often  puzzle  an  adult. 
On  the  other  hand,  you  can  teach  a  child  religion — 
the  love  of  God  in  sending  Jesus — and  the  young 
heart  has  its  response.  Helen  Kellar,  imprisoned 
for  years  in  her  blindness  and  dumbness  and  deaf- 
ness, as  soon  as  communication  was  established 
through  her  teacher  with  the  world  of  mind  and 
she  was  told  of  God,  declared  that  this  was  what 
she  had  known  and  wanted  to  have  put  into  lan- 
guage for  her.  Your  child  was  waiting  at  a  very 
early  age  for  this  truth  about  God,  and  he  seized 
it  with  avidity  and  rejoiced  in  what  you  told  him 
about  God.  You  began  with  your  boy  at  the  Gen- 
esis story,  "  In  the  beginning,  God."  It  is  child- 
hood's first  lesson.  At  that  point  the  boy  gains  his 
first  foothold  in  a  series  of  perpetual  ascents  God- 
ward.  He  goes  on  to  the  next  step,  and  the  Bible 
is  his  guide.  The  "  heaven  that  lies  about  him  in 
his  infancy  "  drops  down  upon  him  gracious  influ- 
ences, as  rain  on  the  tender  herb.  As  he  advances, 
he  meets  the  claims  of  God.  He  accepts  them  in 
happy  choice  of  God  for  his  Father,  Christ  for  his 
Saviour,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  speaking  through  the 
written  word,  for  his  guide.  He  goes  on  into  ma-' 
turity  of  life,  in  which  he  is  continually  enriched 
in  his  progressive  knowledge  of  God.  Ripening 
years  add  to  his  apprehension  of  the  divine  revela- 


THE    BIBLE    AND    ITS    METHOD  WJ 

tion ;  and  having  reached  the  summit  of  life,  he  de- 
scends on  the  westward  and  heavenward  side,  look- 
ing onward  to  the  world  where  they  study  evermore 
these  continuously  progressive  revelations  in  the 
light  of  the  countenance  of  God. 

Between  the  childhood  of  the  individual  and  that 
of  the  race  there  is  a  certain  degree  of  analogy. 
But  even  Professor  Le  Conte  has  warned  us  not 
to  press  the  comparison  too  far.  More  and  more, 
the  theory  of  twenty-five  years  ago,  that  the  pri- 
meval man  was  a  savage,  is  disputed,  and  in  some 
quarters  is  stoutly  denied.  The  savage  is  found  to 
be  a  degenerate,  with  the  race  memory  of  former 
and  better  days.  The  primeval  man  was  undis- 
ciplined and  was  untaught,  save  for  that  primal 
teaching  of  God  which  was  a  necessity  to  his  physi- 
cal and  intellectual  and  moral  existence  as  an  actual 
man.  His  moral  ideas  and  those  of  his  immediate 
descendants  may  have  been  crude.  Physical  ex- 
pression of  those  moral  instincts  essential  to  any 
manhood  was  his  only  way  of  giving  them  voice. 
He  was  necessarily  a  natural  anthropomorphist ; 
i.  e.,  he  conceived  of  God  under  the  forms  of 
expression  derived  from  his  own  physical  body. 

And  the  Bible  story  represents  him  as  doing  ex- 
actly that  thing.  Some  men  to-day  are  not  a  little 
stumbled  that  in  the  Old  Testament  God  is  repre- 
sented as  if  he  were  a  vastly  strong  man.  Your 
boy  begins  just  there.  He  asks  the  universal  boy's 
question,  "  Can  God  make  a  stone  so  big  that  he 


Il8  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

cannot  lift  it?"  In  the  childhood  of  the  race  God 
is  represented  to  men  as  laboring  and  then  resting, 
as  cooling  himself  in  the  evening  air,  as  smelling 
sweet  odors.  The  anthropomorphism  necessary 
in  the  early  race  is  exactly  met  by  that  of  the  rec- 
ord in  the  early  Bible.  Our  great  adjectives  om- 
nipotent, omnipresent,  etc.,  would  have  no  signifi- 
cance. Even  in  our  twentieth  century,  the  most 
advanced  man  has  to  use  terms  derived  from  man's 
body  or  mind  or  soul  in  speaking  of  God.  Nor  are 
these  ways  of  speaking  derogatory  to  him.  Man 
"  made  in  his  image  "  furnishes  our  best  compari- 
son when  we  would  rise  to  the  apprehension  of 
God.  The  whole  Bible  in  its  later  as  well  as  in  its 
earlier  books  makes  God  personal.  There  is  the  de- 
gree of  parallelism  that  necessarily  belongs  to  moral 
beings.  Men  do  moral  work  up  in  God's  plane  of 
the  eternally  right.  There  is  steady  progress  in  the 
nomenclature.  New  names  for  God  are  found  as  the 
moral  history  of  mankind  advances.  But  the  old 
way  of  speaking  continues.  And  men  must  use  it 
constantly  in  prayer  and  in  praise. 

And  it  is  easier  to  do  so  when  we  mark  the  new 
emphasis  given  to  the  immanence  of  God.  He  is  in 
all  events.  He  manifests  himself  in  the  ordinary 
and  in  the  extraordinary.  And  so  as  men  connect 
him  with  the  biblical  events  as  well  as  with  all 
others,  the  transition  is  less  marked  from  the  com- 
mon to  the  uncommon,  and  even  to  the  miraculous 
events  recorded  in  the  Bible. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING 

A  good  man  once  said,  "  The  philosophy,  not 
only  of  former  ages,  but  of  this  age  as  well,  is  not 
friendly  to  Christianity  " ;  and  he  quoted  for  proof 
the  words  of  Paul,  "  Beware  of  philosophy."  But 
Paul  himself  was  of  philosophic  mind.  He  saw 
things  in  seeing  the  reason  for  them  and  the  rela- 
tions of  them.  He  was  always  deducing  principles 
from  facts.  And  had  the  good  man  above  quoted 
read  the  whole  verse,  he  would  have  seen  that  the 
philosophic  apostle  was  warning  men  against 
"  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,"  i.  e.,  a  vain  and  de- 
ceitful philosophy.  It  is  true  that  vast  libraries  of 
philosophic  speculation  have  been  gathered,  and 
that  the  mass  of  them  may  have  had  some  little 
truth  amid  a  great  amount  of  error.  And  in  view 
of  these  old  philosophical  theories,  often  absolutely 
contradictory,  St.  George  Mivart,  in  a  late  volume, 
asks  the  questions,  "  Do  we  know  anything ;  and 
what  do  we  know  for  certainty  ?  "  And  he  answers 
by  declaring  that  all  we  do  know  or  can  possibly 
know  rests  on  our  assumptions.  But  those  assump- 
tions are  necessary,  are  universal,  and  instinctive. 
As  there  can  be  no  other,  so  there  can  be  no  better 
basis. 

119 


120  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

Let  us  see  how  certainly  philosophical  thought 
in  its  rightful  processes,  so  far  from  "  landing  us 
in  the  nowhere,"  really  leads  us  to  One  who  meets 
all  the  highest  demands  of  the  human  mind  and 
heart. 

We  have  to  assume  self  as  a  real  existence;  to 
assume  also  that  self  knows  self  as  knowing  self — 
self  both  subject  and  object.  In  the  act  of  know- 
ing self,  self  knows  also  "  otherness  "  in  things  and 
in  persons.  But  this  is  so  given  as  to  admit  of 
reasoning  about  it  and  of  using  also  the  experience 
of  self  and  others.  We  assume  in  our  personal 
consciousness  the  integrity  of  our  own  powers  of 
mind,  and  we  make  also  the  mental  assumption  of 
the  integrity  of  our  senses.  We  assume  a  connec- 
tion between  the  two,  though  admitting  that  they 
possess  utterly  unlike  qualities.  But  how  this  is, 
though  centuries  of  discussion  have  raged  about 
it,  we  have  to  confess  that  we  do  not  know. 
We  simply  accept  the  fact.  So  that  personal 
consciousness  is  the  basis  of  all  we  know. 

Self  finds,  by  looking  into  self,  certain  "  states 
of  mind,"  or  as  some  call  it,  "  a  stream  of  con- 
sciousness." But  there  is  a  self  that  sees  and  recog- 
nizes this  "  stream  of  consciousness,"  and  can  rea- 
son about  it.  And  this  self  that  sees  and  knows 
these  "  states  of  mind "  we  may  call,  when  it  is 
acting  in  one  way,  "  the  mind,"  and  when  acting  in 
another,  "  the  soul."  On  examining  this  conscious- 
ness we  find  in  its  contents  certain  instinctive  laws 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    121 

of  judging.  We  did  not  make  them.  We  did  not 
put  them  there.  We  found  them  there  when  we 
came  to  know  ourselves.  They  are  standard  laws 
by  which  we  judge.  We  find  there,  as  self  is  ex- 
amining the  contents  of  self,  a  "  law  of  the  true 
and  the  false  " — a  standard  in  our  very  selves  which 
we  did  not  make  and  which  no  man  put  there. 
We  can  make  nothing  to  be  either  true  or  false. 
We  can  only  recognize  it  as  such  when  it  agrees 
or  disagrees  with  this  standard  in  ourself.  We  find 
another  law.  We  did  not  make  it.  It  was  in  us. 
It  is  "  the  law  of  the  right  and  the  wrong " — a 
standard  by  which  we  judge  of  moral  acts.  We 
found  also  by  this  consciousness  a  singular  execu- 
tive force  belonging  to  us,  popularly  called  "  the 
will."  It  is  the  mind  itself  in  the  act  of  starting 
something — a  power  wholly  unlike  the  power  of 
seeing  and  judging  of  "  the  true  and  the  false,"  or 
the  power  of  judging  of  the  "  right  and  wrong." 
Certain  other  convictions  we  have  naturally ;  among 
them  the  sense  of  "  freedom,"  and  this  working  to- 
gether with  a  sense  of  "  obligation."  Both  of  them 
we  felt  had  the  extension  and  both  the  limitation 
of  man's  sphere  of  ability  and  action. 

This  sense  of  obligation  we  did  not  start;  did 
not  subsequently  put  into  ourselves.  It  was  in- 
stinctive. It  was  not  like  physical  obligation  which 
we  can  neither  refuse  nor  alter.  It  was  moral  obliga- 
tion— the  deep  and  abiding  law  of  the  soul,  the  law 
of  duty.     We  began  to  see  that  we  were  in  soul 


122  THE  MATURE  MAN  S  DIFFICULTIES 

born  into  this  realm  of  things  exactly  as  our  bodies 
were  born  into  the  physical  world,  and  had  to  con- 
sent or  refuse  to  do  our  work  under  this  law  of 
the  soul  as  under  that  law  of  the  body.  Where 
did  all  this  moral  world  of  things  originate?  The 
origin  of  a  thinking  being  must  be  a  thinking  be- 
ing. Some  one  started  this  scheme  of  thinking  ac- 
cording to  "  the  law  of  the  true  and  the  false." 
Some  one  started  this  moral  "  world  of  the  right 
and  the  wrong."  Some  one  must  have  given  us  the 
interpretative  mind  and  soul,  ushering  us  into  his 
own  sphere  of  things,  and  fitting  us  in  some  measure 
to  interpret  him.  If  there  is  a  true  and  a  false, 
there  must  be  somewhere  a  Standard  Mind.  If  there 
is  a  right  and  a  wrong,  there  is  a  Standard  Soul — 
a  God 

So  too,  in  the  executive  domain — popularly  called 
"  the  will " — we  found,  in  thinking  this  thing 
through,  that  the  only  power  we  know  or  can  con- 
ceive of  as  originating  anything  is  will,  demoniacal 
will,  human  will,  divine  will.  Will  starts  some- 
thing; starts  all  things.  So  that  when  we  see  any- 
thing started,  any  process  beginning  and  going  on, 
we  do  inevitably,  naturally,  and  instinctively  say 
that  somebody  is  at  the  basis  of  all  this.  Some 
cause  in  will  produced  this  effect.  It  is  the  in- 
stinctive belief  in  what  is  called  "  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect " — the  adequate  cause  for  such  an  ef- 
fect— a  law  pointing  always  to  the  great  First  Cause, 
the  original  Personality  standing  at  the  head  of  the 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I23 

physical  world  that  surrounds  us,  and  of  the  mental 
world  and  the  moral  world  within  us,  and  so  about 
us  and  above  us,  and  of  which  we  form  a  part. 

To  summarize  our  argument :  Given,  in  any  one 
man's  soul  the  slightest  distinction  "  between  the 
right  and  the  wrong,"  you  have  a  moral  being. 
Given  a  moral  being,  you  have  a  moral  universe, 
which  in  its  very  nature  dominates  every  other  con- 
ception. Given  a  dominating  moral  universe,  you 
have  a  God  whose  chief  distinction  is  that  he  is  a 
moral  God.  Such  a  moral  God  must  be  conceived 
of  as  making  moral  manifestation.  And  the  highest 
moral  manifestation  we  can  conceive  of  is  through 
some  manifested  personality. 

Just  here,  one  conception  of  modern  evolutionary 
thought  joins  issue.  Fascinated  with  the  idea  of  cos- 
mic unity  all  apart  from  moral  purposefulness,  some 
would  make  the  order  of  the  universe  to  be  a  ver- 
itable God.  Order,  they  say,  orders  all.  The  uni- 
verse is  a  machine  in  correct  motion.  Sun,  moon,  and 
stars  are  keeping  time.  The  barrel-organ  is  playing 
properly  its  constant  tune.  But  after  a  little  while 
this  conception  wearies.  This  very  constancy,  this 
unvarying  uniformity,  this  adamantine  process  with- 
out mental  interference,  this  evolution  not  accord- 
ing to  will,  but  by  "  self-resident  forces  inherent 
naturally  in  things  themselves  " — this  unbroken  con- 
tinuity of  operation  begins  to  oppress  the  mind  and 
heart.  It  is,  however,  obvious  that  one — just  one — 
clear    instance    of    discontinuity,    and    this    whole 


124  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

scheme  of  atheistic  evolution  is  forever  confuted. 
But  discontinuity  is  certainly  to  be  found  in  ten 
thousand  instances.  If  I  hold  up  this  sheet  of  paper 
on  which  I  am  writing,  between  the  sun  and  myself, 
I  make  discontinuity  as  I  intercept  the  sun's  rays. 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  William  James  insist  that  dis- 
continuity shall  be  recognized.  There  are  unity  and 
plurality,  interlacing  and  interference,  interaction 
and  separation,  evolution  and  revelation,  continuity 
and  discontinuity,  agreement  and  discrepancy,  one- 
ness and  specialty,  the  joined  and  the  disjoined,  the 
one  and  the  many.  The  monist  and  the  pluralist 
have  here  their  endless  debate.  The  monist  assum- 
ing— it  has  to  be  an  assumption,  for  no  man  can 
know  all  the  facts  that  "  have  been,  are  now,  and 
ever  shall  be  " — assumes  final  if  not  present  unity. 
Pressed  by  the  facts  of  evident  discontinuity  he  says 
that  unity  is  going  finally  to  conquer  diversity.  But 
how  does  he  know?  On  the  other  hand  there  are 
those  who  contend  for  manifoldness  against  oneness. 
But  since  man  is  not  omniscient  no  one  can  say  of 
himself  that  diversity  shall  at  length  conquer  unity. 
Meanwhile  both  of  them  exist  side  by  side.  But  see 
the  unmistakable  inference,  viz.,  there  is  no  possible 
room  for  interference  in  the  continuity  claimed  by 
the  atheistic  form  of  evolutionary  theory.  Only 
theistic  evolution — some  good  men  prefer  to  call  it 
theistic  development,  since  the  term  "  evolution " 
for  so  many  minds  carries  with  it  the  atheistic  con- 
ception— only  the  theistic  conception  of  evolution 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    125 

can  solve  the  problem.  God  is  evolving — evolving 
the  true  conception  of  himself.  A  God,  and  he  a 
moral  God,  with  moral  purposes  and  moral  ends  in 
view  from  first  to  last,  carrying  on  orderly  proc- 
esses when  he  shall  choose  to  do  so,  and  yet  inter- 
fering with  his  usual  habits  of  doing  things  and 
using  both  the  unity  and  the  diversity,  must  be 
posited,  or  there  is  no  philosophy  worth  the  name. 
We  must  hold  to  a  great  unity  of  events  leading  on 
and  up  to  a  personal  revelation  by  some  such  person 
as  the  biblical  Christ,  and  at  the  same  time  we  must 
hold  to  a  great  interference  through  some  such  ad- 
vent as  the  Bible  describes.  And  just  so  far  as  the 
modern  man,  perfectly  conscious  of  the  modern 
spirit,  shall  recognize  in  his  philosophy  of  things 
and  events,  the  biblical  scheme,  including  as  it  does 
the  ordinary  and  the  extraordinary,  he  will  let  go 
of  that  ordinary  materialism  which  sees  only  phys- 
ical fact  and  law,  and  equally  will  he  decline  to 
accept  the  ordinary  idealism  which  sees  only  con- 
ceptions as  the  finalities,  as  well  as  the  "  pragma- 
tism "  that  looks  away  from  first  things  and  actual 
causes  and  holds  all  things  in  flux,  and  he  will  wel- 
come the  one  only  broad  theory — that  of  a  moral 
God  who  is  ever  a  God  of  moral  design,  ever  mani- 
festing himself  morally,  whether  along  the  lines  of 
ordinary  activity  or  by  the  thrusting  in  of  special 
interference. 

Certain  attributes  could  be  disclosed  by  created 
things;  but  the  real  selfhood  of  God  requires  other 


126  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

selfhood  of  the  grade  of  moral  and  intellectual 
being  for  manifestation.  Inspiration  of  prophet  and 
apostle  would  by  no  means  exhaust  the  possibilities 
of  divine  manifestation.  These  could  be  but  an- 
ticipatory and  premonitory.  They  roused  expecta- 
tion. Men  watched  and  wondered.  By  such  in- 
spirations the  way  was  being  prepared  for  the  one 
supreme  manifestation  of  "  God  manifested  in  the 
flesh  "  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  need  would  not  be  met 
by  any  supposed  being  partially  God  and  partially 
man,  and  so  only  a  monstrosity.  The  only  possible 
fulfilment  of  these  foreshadowings,  the  only  sat- 
isfaction of  these  needs,  is  in  the  personal  Christ. 
The  philosophic  conception  of  our  mental  and  moral 
powers  and  processes  could  not  alone  have  taught 
us  the  amazing  fact.  But  they  teach  us  the  need  of 
such  a  fact  and  that  there  is  in  us  a  preparation  foi 
it.  And  when  once  the  fact  is  given  us  in  human  his- 
tory that  there  is  such  a  Christ,  we  see  afresh  that 
these  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  are  anticipatory 
and  prophetic  of  such  a  Person. 

Christianity  is  Jesus  Christ.  Christianity  is 
not  a  theory,  though  men  have  had  their  theories 
of  Christ  in  the  long  processes  of  human  thought ; 
not  a  creed,  though  creeds  have  been  gathered  from 
his  teachings  which,  as  derivative  and  explanatory 
of  them,  are  worth  our  study;  not  a  morality, 
though  morals  never  before  had  such  breadth  and 
depth  and  heighth,  and  above  all,  never  before  had 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING     12? 

such  stimulation ;  not  a  philosophy  or  a  philanthropy, 
though  these  may  be  warranted  deductions  from  his 
words  and  deeds.  It  is  just  this — no  more,  no  less, 
no  other — Christianity  is  Christ  as  the  manifestation 
of  God,  for  the  needs  of  finite  and  sinful  men. 

There  is  in  us  as  men  a  certain  aptitude  for  such 
a  Christ  as  the  fulfilment  of  an  ideal.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  peculiar  completeness  in  the  idea  consid- 
ered simply  as  an  idea.  Things  have  led  up  to  the 
conception.  In  such  a  case  the  ideal  demands 
the  actual.  The  mind  requires  it  as  an  ultimatum. 
Psychologically,  we  are  so  made  up  as  to  work 
swiftly  and  with  a  good  degree  of  accuracy  along 
this  way  toward  a  realized  expectation.  Taking 
the  various  lines  of  thought  and  feeling  already 
noted,  it  might  be  well  argued  that  some  such  being 
as  Jesus  Christ  ought  to  be.  It  may  be  that  he  is 
only  indicated  at  first.  But  he  is  next  shown  to  be 
especially  needed,  as  well  as  very  widely  expected — 
the  desire,  in  their  best  moments,  of  all  men.  He 
would  explain  so  much  that  calls  for  explanation, 
harmonize  so  much  that  otherwise  were  left  in  dis- 
cord, bring  to  consummation  so  much  that  has 
moral  prediction,  fill  up  the  void  that  is  almost  a 
yawning  chasm  without  him,  would  gratify  both 
mind  and  heart,  would  set  at  rest  so  many  universal 
questionings  by  utterances  which  only  such  a  mani- 
fested God  could  make,  would  come  so  near  and 
so  beneficently  to  our  very  selfhood,  that  the  logic 
of  his  possibility  would  not  only  make  us  ready  to 


128  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

receive  such  a  Christ  into  our  mental  and  moral  life, 
but  go  far  toward  being  a  proof  that  he  is  an 
actuality.  At  the  very  least,  it  may  be  urged  that 
there  is  a  preparation  for  accepting  one  who  so 
exactly  meets  an  ideal  completeness.  And  the  per- 
fected idea  gets  its  perfect  satisfaction  in  him.  He 
leaves  nothing  further  to  be  gained.  He  fills  the 
horizon.  In  him  we  have  arrived.  The  manifest- 
ing God  has  fully  manifested  himself  and  man  has 
found  his  Ultimate.  For  man,  such  a  Christ  would 
be  "  the  starter  and  the  finisher  of  faith  " ;  for  God 
he  would  be  "  the  express  image  of  his  person." 
The  eternal  fitness  of  things  would  find  its  consum- 
mation. In  such  a  Christ  the  mental  and  moral 
conception  of  God  appears  as  meeting  the  mental 
and  moral  conception  of  man. 

Many  think  that  the  belief  in  a  God  is  not  so 
self-evident  as  not  to  admit  of  the  consideration 
of  the  evidences  of  his  existence  that  he  has  himself 
furnished  us.  Free  to  consider,  we  are  free  to  de- 
cide about  it ;  and  so  there  is  the  moral  responsi- 
bility that  does  not  belong  to  our  reception  of  an 
absolutely  self-evident  truth.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  "  the  will  to  believe "  in  a  moral  proposition. 
It  is  the  same  with  the  manifestation  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ.  There  is  an  immense  moral  aptitude. 
The  idea  of  such  a  being  befits  our  moral  convic- 
tions. He  ought  to  be.  He  is  the  realization  of 
the  highest  moral  ideal.  There  is  preparation  for 
him   in   the   very   constitution   of   our   minds   and 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I29 

hearts.  But  here  too,  there  is  the  place  for  personal 
moral  action.  We  choose  whether  to  give  room  to 
the  almost  instinctively  persuasive.  We  choose 
also  whether  we  will  consider  the  arguments  and 
weigh  carefully  the  proofs  which  God  gives  that 
he  has  sent  Jesus  into  the  world.  There  is  moral 
responsibility  for  believing  in  God  and  also  for  be- 
lieving in  Jesus  Christ,  as  there  would  not  be  if 
the  belief  were  a  matter  so  self-evident  that  no  ar- 
gument about  it  was  needed.  So  too,  if  God  and 
Christ  were  mathematically  proved,  as  a  sum  is 
proved  in  arithmetic,  there  could  be  no  moral  worth 
in  the  belief.  But  when  we  let  the  moral  nature 
that  sees  the  need  of  such  a  Christ  have  its  free 
action,  then  we  can  fairly  consider  the  proofs  and 
come  to  the  decision.  Mood  of  soul,  as  well  as  care- 
fulness in  weighing  the  evidence,  is  essential  to  fair- 
ness.    Christianity — we  repeat  it — is  Jesus  Christ. 

I.  Jesus  Christ  is  a  Person.  He  is  not  a  myth. 
No  such  myth  was  possible  at  that  New  Testament 
time.  The  myth  theory  had  for  a  short  period  some 
currency.  It  is  dead  and  buried  now.  So  too,  the 
idea  of  imposture  is  gone;  and  equally  the  idea  of 
mistake.  The  latest  theory — and  since  all  other 
theories  of  unbelief  have  had  their  day,  it  must  be 
the  last — is  that  of  inaccuracy  in  the  details  amount- 
ing to  untrustworthiness  in  the  historians  and 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  writers  of 
the  Gospels  and  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 


I3O  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

But  the  alleged  Christian  facts  are  far  within  the 
circle  of  credible  history ;  and  all  the  world  accepts 
other  historic  facts  of  lesser  importance  chronicled 
at  the  time  these  New  Testament  records  were 
made.  The  age  in  which  it  was  said  the  events  oc- 
curred was  a  critical  age.  The  reaction  from  myths 
had  set  in.  And  historic  fact  was  required  by  the 
Roman  spirit  everywhere  prevalent.  The  science 
of  evidence  had  come  to  be  as  well  defined  as  it 
is  to-day.  It  was  an  age  since  which  not  a  hair's 
breadth  has  been  added  to  Euclid's  geometry;  an 
age  still  studied  by  men  in  our  colleges  as  the  Au- 
gustan Age;  an  age  of  highest  attainments  in  sculp- 
ture, architecture,  and  literature;  an  age  careful, 
exact,  not  overcredulous,  capable  of  correctly  weigh- 
ing evidence,  of  making  decisions  upon  facts  and  of 
transmitting  the  account  of  them  to  succeeding  gen- 
erations. Aristotle,  the  master  mind  in  logic,  had 
lived — the  teacher  of  all  the  generations  in  the 
methods  of  orderly  thought.  The  world  was  able  to 
know  and  to  record  what  it  knew.  The  basal  facts 
are  an  incorporated  part  of  human  history. 

And  the  place  of  the  alleged  occurrences  was  as 
significant  as  were  the  people  and  the  time.  It 
was  Palestine,  the  very  central  land  of  the  older 
civilization.  On  the  one  side  of  it  were  Egypt  and 
Ethiopia,  at  one  time  the  most  renowned  of  lands. 
Babylon,  Nineveh,  and  India,  each  also  distinguished 
at  successive  periods  of  ancient  history,  were  on 
the  north  and  east.    Subsequently,  in  another  direc- 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I3I 

tion,  were  Greece  and  Rome.  All  done  in  a  land 
so  situated  was  done  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world. 
Near-by  Phoenician  mariners  sailed  the  Mediter- 
ranean. And  through  that  Palestine  the  great  cara- 
vans with  an  immense  inward  commerce  were 
obliged  to  pass.  It  was  for  its  central  situation 
the  coveted  land  of  all  the  surrounding  nations. 
No  other  time  than  that  time,  no  other  land  than 
that  land,  no  other  people  than  that  people  in  all 
the  long  past,  could  furnish  superior  opportunity 
for  such  a  personal  revelation  of  God. 

Nothing  now  and  here  is  claimed  save  what  all 
admit,  that  some  such  person  as  Jesus  Christ  has 
lived.  And  what  we  want  to  do  at  this  stage  of  our 
inquiry  is  to  examine  the  world's  thought  of  him, 
exactly  as  we  have  examined  the  processes  of 
human  thought  in  the  preparation  for  him. 

It  would  take  us  too  far  afield  to  go  over  historic 
evidences.  Nor  does  our  scheme  of  thought  re- 
quire it.  Enough  that  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  be 
regarded  as  giving  some  general  account  of  One 
who  has  not  only  notched  the  calendar  of  the  fore- 
most centuries  and  given  them  his  name,  but  who 
ideally  represents  all  virtue  in  the  minds  of  their 
thoughtful  and  spiritual  men. 

He  is  a  Person.  He  has  human  nature.  The 
speculation  that  he  had  a  human  body,  but  that  the 
place  in  us  occupied  by  mind  and  soul,  in  him  was 
occupied  by  God  himself,  has  so  long  gone  by  that 
it  needs  not  to  be  confuted.     Enough  to  say  that 


I32  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

in  such  a  being  there  could  be  no  human  nature 
like  our  own,  and  so  he  would  have  failed  in  mani- 
festing God  to  us.  A  superangelic,  and  for  the 
same  reason  a  superhuman  being,  would  not  meet 
the  case.  Just  there  was  the  mistake  of  the  pagan 
mythologies  in  which  God  came  into  the  body  of 
fish,  of  beast,  or  of  bird.  But  only  as  one  comes 
into  the  human  race  by  the  same  gateway  of  a 
human  birth  as  we  all  come,  can  he  fully  manifest 
God  and  also  have  the  needed  influence  upon  us. 
He  only  can  become  our  brother  man  by  being  born 
into  the  race  of  mankind.  Jesus  Christ  evidently  be- 
longed to  that  class  of  personalities  who  have  an 
intelligent  and  moral  nature  and  so  are  veritable 
men.  And  the  genuine  man,  as  well  as  the  actual 
God,  is  needed  for  the  full  idea  of  a  divine  in- 
carnation among  us. 

The  tendency  in  human  thinking  has  been  toward 
the  belief  in  some  such  incarnation  of  God  in  our 
whole  nature,  body  and  mind  and  soul,  as  that 
claimed  by  the  New  Testament.  Full  manhood  is 
required,  since  man  is  the  highest  form  of  created 
being  that  we  know.1  And  it  would  be  strange  in- 
deed if  the  God  whose  great  aim  is  self -manifesta- 
tion to  man,  after  selecting  so  many  inferior  ob- 
jects for  his  partial  revelation,  should  have  passed 
by  absolutely  perfect  human  nature  as  his  con- 
summate method.     That  he  used  men,  though  they 

1  "  Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  God."  (Ps.  8  :  5, 
R.  V.) 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I33 

were  imperfect,  in  the  long  preparatory  centuries,  is 
indicative  of  the  line  in  which  incarnation  would 
come.  But  when  we  remember  that  God  is  a  Per- 
son, and  man  is  a  corresponding  person,  thus  shar- 
ing a  certain  intimacy,  because  of  kind  of  being, 
then  we  may  begin  to  understand  that  both  the  God 
who  seeks  to  reveal  and  the  man  who  is  to  receive 
the  revelation,  will  crave  the  highest  possible  form 
of  it  through  the  whole  human  personality.  The 
surpassing  instance  will  be  a  Christ  who  is  God 
becoming  man.  The  case  of  some  holy  prophet  or 
apostle  filled,  as  far  as  such  a  man  possibly  could 
be  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  will  not  meet  the  con- 
ditions. For  basally,  such  a  person  would  still  be  a 
man,  and  only  a  man.  That  could  only  be  an  indica- 
tion, not  an  incarnate  consummation.  It  is  God 
reaching  down  that  is  needed,  rather  than  man 
reaching  up.  Prophets  and  apostles  may  be  men  in- 
spired of  God,  but  no  one  of  them  is  a  God  incarnate. 
And  human  thought  has  always  made  this  broadest 
of  distinctions. 

It  is  true  that  now  and  then  a  man  of  some 
eminence  has  urged  us  to  regard  the  inspiration  of 
Jesus  as  the  same  in  kind  as  that  of  the  best  men, 
though  greater  in  degree,  and  has  defended  the 
position  with  philosophic  disquisition.  But  the 
great  current  of  human  thought  has  required  some- 
thing widely  different ;  and  the  shrinking  of  the 
best  men  from  the  imputation  to  themselves  of  such 
a  thing  is  significant.     Jesus  the  person  is  another 


134  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

sort  of  being.  A  true  man,  he  is  also  more.  Here 
is  not  only  immanence,  but  transcendence.  Some- 
how, by  means  of  the  story  of  Jesus,  the  whole  ideal 
of  moral  being  has  been  lifted  in  human  thought; 
and,  yet,  an  important  fact — the  best  men  of  the  race 
have  never  felt  that  any  one  has  reached  that  ideal 
save  the  Christ  himself.  He  claims  to  have  so 
done.  Evermore  he  transcends.  And  so  it  comes 
about  that  the  most  consummate  expression  of  the 
manifestation  of  God  of  which  we  can  conceive  lies 
along  this  direction — a  transcendent  incarnation. 
All  the  preparation  of  the  ages  culminates  just  here. 
When  the  idea  of  such  an  incarnation  dawns  on  the 
soul  of  a  man  it  is  the  rising  of  the  sun  after  mid- 
night darkness.  When  it  dawns  on  the  soul  of  the 
ages,  Christianity  is  recognized  as  that  which  so 
meets  all  our  needs  as  to  carry  its  own  evidence 
as  sunlight  carries  evidence  of  a  sun.  No  other 
thought  is  comparable  with  it  for  a  moment  in  its 
height  and  depth  and  breadth.  It  fills  the  horizon 
of  human  thinking.  It  ought  to  be  true.  The  hu- 
man thought  of  it  ought  not  to  be  greater  than  the 
divine  reality  of  it. 

And  it  is  just  this — the  amazing  grandeur  of  the 
conception — that  has  awakened  objection.  So  little 
a  world  as  ours  among  "  the  universe  of  worlds 
upon  worlds  "  seems  far  too  diminutive  to  be  the 
theater  of  such  an  occurrence.  But  that  is  to  con- 
found the  physically  small  with  the  morally  large — 
as  if  one  should  confound  a  man's  body  of  a  certain 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I35 

number  of  pounds  avoirdupois  with  the  weight  of 
some  vast  mountain  range,  and  forget  that  within 
that  human  body  is  a  soul  that  can  know,  while 
the  whole  vast  mountain  range  cannot  know  itself 
nor  know  the  man  who  knows  it.  One  thought 
of  a  thinking  mind  transcends  in  grandeur  a  whole 
physical  universe.  And  if  God's  one  great  thought, 
comprehending  every  other,  is  that  of  holy  self- 
manifestation,  and  if  man's  highest  preparatory 
thought  is  along  the  same  line,  then  the  strong 
natural  presumption  is  in  favor  of  this  incarnate 
manifestation.  It  is  not  too  great  a  thing  for  God 
to  do;  and  man  is  great  enough  to  be  profoundly 
moved  by  it.  This  kind  of  incarnation  meets  and 
fulfils  all  Jewish  prophecy;  meets  also  the  deepest 
pagan  prophecies  which  expressed  so  much  of  the 
natural  want  and  hope  of  untold  millions.  And 
yet — singular  fact — it  disappointed  the  misled  gen- 
eration of  the  Hebrew  nation  which  did  not  ex- 
pect at  that  time  such  a  Christ,  and  so  far  from 
receiving  him,  crucified  him ;  and  disappointed  as 
well  heathendom,  which  in  that  age  hoped  for  a 
solely  physical  salvation  by  a  solely  physical 
deliverer. 

But  if  the  great  bulk  of  popular  thought  in  that 
century  when  Christ  was  born,  expecting  as  it  did 
some  kind  of  a  Revealer,  had  missed  the  better 
conception,  a  few  of  the  most  spiritual  souls  in  the 
world  had  been  prepared  to  receive  the  true  Christ. 
Something   similar   to   that   rejection   and   also   to 


I36  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

that  reception  has  occurred  ever  since  the  Advent, 
only  that  increasing  numbers  have  had  the  spiritual 
apprehension  of  the  spiritual  Christ.  A  unique  ex- 
perience in  such  souls,  gathering  at  first  about  some 
single  event  of  Christ's  personality,  has  made  fact 
after  fact  in  his  revelation  of  himself  more  and 
more  convincing.  It  has  been  a  process  with  them 
— a  morally  logical  process — the  most  certain  and 
convincing  kind  of  evidence  that  any  man  can  pos- 
sibly have.  A  Christian  experience  coming  alike 
to  head  and  heart  and  changing  the  whole  interior 
and  exterior  life,  not  as  the  result  of  a  philosophy, 
but  of  personal  contact  with  Christ  as  a  person,  is 
a  fact  as  certain  as  certainty  itself;  and  it  is  the 
resultant  fact  of  a  sufficient  cause.  If  the  deepest 
and  most  certain  thing  is  personality,  and  if  we  are 
so  made  up  that  our  own  personality  is  touched  in  its 
deepest  depth  only  by  another's  personality,  then 
this  Christian  experience  of  the  soul's  spiritual  com- 
munion with  its  Christ  is  the  most  morally  reason- 
able thing  that  we  can  ever  know.  And  all  this  in- 
volves a  personal  soul  and  a  personal  Christ.  The 
highest  and  broadest  spiritual  endowment,  carry- 
ing with  it  all  in  the  man,  meets  the  highest  con- 
ceivable revelation  of  God  in  this  unique  Person. 
It  is  man  at  his  utmost  meeting  God  at  what,  so  far 
as  we  know,  is  likewise  his  utmost. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  this  is  not  a  universal 
experience.  Of  course  not.  No  such  thing  is 
claimed   for  all  men;  but  only  this,  viz.,  the  ca- 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I37 

pacity  of  all  men  for  becoming  through  this  ex- 
perience "  the  sons  of  God."  Jevons  has  said,  "  Of 
the  scientific  method  the  first  law  is  that  whatever 
phenomena  is,  is.  Let  us  investigate  those  instincts 
of  the  human  mind  by  which  man  is  led  to  work 
as  if  the  approval  of  a  higher  Being  were  the  aim 
of  life."  Psychological  fact  is  the  most  convincing 
of  all  kinds  of  fact.  And  here  is  the  double  psycho- 
logical fact  of  a  series  of  historic  occurrences,  hav- 
ing in  them  immense  moral  potency  for  accordant 
souls;  and  right  over  against  these  physico-moral 
occurrences  about  an  alleged  Christ  are  men  having 
their  deepest  nature  more  profoundly  stirred,  ele- 
vated, enlarged,  and  satisfied  than  by  anything  else 
ever  experienced.  Here  is  distinct  psychologic 
actuality,  involving  the  highest  Being  and  also  the 
best  classes  of  men.  And  the  story  of  the  Chris- 
tian experience  of  the  soul's  contact  with  an  ever- 
living  Christ  is  a  testimony  that  no  fair  student  of 
human  thought  and  feeling  can  afford  to  ignore. 

It  may  be  objected  to  this  line  of  thought  that 
this  experience  in  human  conviction  does  not  carry 
with  it  necessarily  the  idea  of  an  absolutely  divine 
Christ.  May  he  not  be  some  supernatural  person- 
age, less  than  God  and  more  than  man?  Precisely 
this  objection  is  urged  against  the  proofs  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  personal  God.  But  moral  reasoning  on 
moral  questions,  such  as  the  existence  of  God  and 
the  absolute  perfection  of  Jesus  Christ  proceeds  as 
accurately,  though  in  a  different  way,  as  does  any 


I38  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

mathematical  reasoning.  Moral  proof  is  largely 
moral  trend.  It  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  heart  in 
its  best  impulses.  It  is  discernment  through  the  ex- 
ercise of  moral  vision  as  it  sees  moral  necessity.  It 
has  its  moral  axioms  as  sure  as  those  on  which  in 
geometry  the  whole  science  depends.  There  is  a 
feeling  of  satisfaction  in  the  soul  as  well  as  in  the 
intellect.  And  it  is  as  fit  that  the  one  should  be 
gratified  as  the  other.  It  has  its  own  demands,  and 
asks  corresponding  fact  and  knows  when  that 
demand  is  met  by  the  requisite  fact. 

Now,  here  is  the  corresponding  fact :  that  this 
best  moral  thought  which  requires  an  absolutely 
perfect  being  finds  its  requirement  made  good  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  There  is  one  stainless 
person  in  all  human  biography.  In  all  the  old  cen- 
turies the  foremost  ethical  teachers  had  endeavored 
to  draw  the  picture  of  a  sinless  person — and  failed 
in  every  case.  And  yet  certain  plain  men  have  done 
in  the  New  Testament  what  the  most  skilful  literary 
and  moral  artists  of  the  world  have  not  been  able 
to  do;  and  they  have  done  it  without  possessing 
any  special  genius,  themselves  incapable  of  invent- 
ing all  the  various  situations  in  which  they  have 
made  him  absolutely  perfect.  The  question  is  a 
fair  one  when  we  ask  if  they  could  have  done  it 
had  there  not  been  One  who  lived  this  absolutely 
sinless  life? 

And  there  is  the  further  question  whether,  after 
gaining   the   conception    from   seeing   this    perfect 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I39 

Person,  they  could  have  depicted  him  without 
an  aid  that  was  no  less  than  divine.  They  por- 
tray no  namby-pamby  personage,  no  weakly  opti- 
mistic man  able  to  see  only  good  things  and  say 
only  pleasant  words.  He  has  moral  stamina.  He 
is  no  monk,  retired  from  an  active  career ;  no  as- 
cetic, no  untried,  inexperienced  man.  He  is  no  man 
of  insipid  goodness.  In  a  wicked  world  he  was  not 
wanting  in  holy  wrath  against  confirmed  evil-doers. 
He  had  moral  indignation,  the  pure  anger  of  a  holy 
soul  against  evil.  In  a  perfectly  holy  being  the  hate 
of  the  wrong  must  be  exactly  equal  to  the  love  of 
the  right.  He  saw  men  defiling  the  temple;  he 
used  the  whip  of  small  cords  as  a  scepter,  and  the 
defilers  needed  no  physical  compulsion  as  they  saw 
his  indignant  eye  and  fled.  He  met,  and  so  he 
must  denounce,  impenitent  hypocrisy.  When  the 
disciples  needed  the  object-lesson,  he  withered  more 
fully  the  already  blasted  fig  tree;  and  they  learned 
that  moral  un  fruit  fulness  is  moral  death.  Let  no 
man  object  to  such  teachings  in  a  perfect  being,  es- 
pecially when  one  considers  that  these  denunciations 
of  wrong-doers  are  always  connected  with  promises 
to  those  who  will  leave  the  wrong  and  seek  truth 
and  righteousness.  The  chapter  of  Matthew's  Gos- 
pel that  rings  out  the  strongest  condemnation  to 
one  class  of  hearers,  ends  with  the  tenderest  in- 
vitations to  the  heavy  laden  to  come  to  him  and 
find  rest  to  their  souls. 

And  it  is  in  this  complete  poise  of  Jesus  that  we 


140  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

find  his  perfection.  It  stands  not  alone  in  the  com- 
pleteness of  single  virtues,  but  in  virtues  related 
and  balanced  as  they  are  seen  when  drawn  out  by 
those  he  meets  in  his  eventful  career.  But  his  own 
consciousness  of  his  perfection  is  remarkable. 
"  Which  of  you  convicteth  me  of  sin  ? "  is  his  chal- 
lenge to  his  hostile  hearers.  Every  other  good  man 
is  known  as  a  penitent  over  daily  mistakes.  Con- 
fession of  sin  becomes  every  other  person.  Repent- 
ance is  the  first  duty;  the  prayer  for  forgiveness 
is  the  first  true  prayer  of  any  true  man.  But 
here  is  an  unrepentant  man,  who  never  shows  con- 
sciousness of  sin  in  any  word  he  utters;  who  never 
owns  a  mistake;  who  never  expresses  a  regret. 
All  these  confessions  and  contritions  he  requires 
of  others ;  and  good  men  require  them  of  other 
good  men,  as  well  as  of  themselves.  But  the  moral 
thought  of  the  world  does  not  require  them  of 
Jesus.  He  never  repented.  And  yet  no  one  ac- 
cuses him  of  pride,  of  egotism,  of  lack  of  doing  the 
right  thing  because  he  does  not  fitly  repent.  The 
moral  thought  of  the  world  is  satisfied  with  his 
omission  of  the  very  first  virtue  out  of  which  all 
other  religious  virtues  in  men  naturally  grow.  There 
are  things  in  which  he  is  not  a  model,  because  he  is 
more;  but  where  he  is  model,  he  is  perfect.  And 
in  the  way  in  which  he  does  things  that  are  not  for 
us  model  acts,  he  is  always  the  model  in  the  mood 
of  mind  and  soul  in  which  he  does  them.  Human 
thought  has  demanded,  but  human  thought  did  hot 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I4I 

make  the  perfect  Christ.  Blindness  in  part  had 
fallen  on  the  nation  and  the  age  in  which  he  ap- 
peared. It  was  an  age  distinguished  for  literary 
achievement,  for  careful  legal  discrimination.  It 
was  the  age  of  Greek  philosophy  and  of  Roman 
jurisprudence.  It  could  weigh  evidence  for  an  al- 
leged fact  as  well  as  our  twentieth  century.  Virgil 
sang,  Plato  had  reasoned,  and  Euclid  gave  the  world 
a  geometry  so  perfect  that  nothing  has  been  added 
to  it  since  his  day.  But  it  was  an  age  as  dark  mor- 
ally as  it  was  bright  intellectually.  And  the  con- 
ception of  such  a  person  as  Jesus  was  not  found  in 
any  nation  on  the  planet.  The  Hebrew  Scriptures 
contained  it  in  outline.  But  Jewish  thought,  in 
just  that  particular  century,  had  hidden  the  light 
under  the  bushel.  The  prophetic  intimations  were 
not  simply  misread;  they  were  perverted.  The 
leaders  were  "  blind  leaders  of  the  blind."  Roman 
thought,  just  then,  was  absorbed  in  the  idea  of 
world-wide  dominion.  Its  only  Christ  was  a 
mightier  Caesar.  Greek  thought  was  poetic  when 
not  philosophic,  and  sought  beauty  in  all  forms 
save  that  of  the  deep  moral  "  beauty  of  holiness  " — 
a  beauty  of  which  the  Greek  had  no  conception. 
But  just  in  that  peculiar  age  there  came  One  who 
did  not  meet  its  superficial  expectations ;  a  being  of 
another  model,  of  another  kind. 

But  whatever  the  surface  thought  in  any  man  or 
in  any  age,  the  great  human  heart  beats  the  same 
in  us  all.     Deep  calls  unto  deep.     The  permanent 


142  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

demands  of  a  soul  as  a  soul  are  not  satisfied  by  any 
ritualism  in  religion  or  any  speculation  in  philos- 
ophy. These  demands  are  the  broadest  and  deep- 
est that  the  human  soul  thoroughly  awake  to  its 
needs  can  ever  know. 

And  they  are  all  exactly  met  in  one  Person.  Not 
only  flawless,  but  perfect  in  character  toward  God 
and  toward  men,  he  stands  out  claiming  in  turn 
the  recognition  of  all  human  thought  in  its  largest 
moral  requirement  and  expectations.  He  combines 
successfully  the  virtues  widest  apart  and  harmo- 
nizes the  greatest  moral  contrasts.  He  is  "  Son  of 
man,"  and  he  is  "  Son  of  God."  And  here  too,  in 
this  amazing  breadth  of  being,  he  exactly  meets  the 
demands  of  the  best  moral  thought  of  the  race.  It 
is  not  by  solution.  We  cannot  solve  the  question 
of  how  such  a  being  can  exist  any  more  than  we 
can  solve  the  equally  difficult  problem  of  how  God 
can  exist  at  all.  Intellectually  there  must  be,  ought 
to  be,  will  always  be,  mystery  about  God — and 
equally  about  Christ.  But  our  practical  thinking, 
when  the  soul  within  us  thinks  its  deeper  thoughts, 
requires  the  "  Son  of  man  " ;  and  none  other  can 
suit  it  in  those  moods.  In  others  of  its  moods  it 
requires  none  the  less  that  the  Christ  shall  be  the 
incarnate  "  Son  of  God."  Subjective  thought  here 
meets  objective  fact.  The  human  soul  finds  the 
New  Testament  Christ. 

It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  the  requirement  is  for 
a  perpetual  Christ,  so  that  there  shall  be  no  man, 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I43 

however  distant  in  time  from  the  age  in  which 
Christ  lived,  to  whom  this  Christ  cannot  come. 
This  requires  omniscience  on  the  part  of  this  Christ, 
that  he  may  know  each  man,  however  distant  or 
obscure.  The  earthly  career  of  Christ  in  a  human 
body,  it  is  said,  terminated  at  a  definite  time.  It 
has  been  asked  why,  if  he  was  to  be  the  perpetual 
Christ  who  should  meet  the  want  of  humanity  in  all 
the  long  ages,  he  did  not  continue  after  his  resur- 
rection to  live  among  men.  But  what  would  have 
been  gained  for  the  eye  of  the  body  would  have 
been  lost  for  the  eye  of  the  soul.  He  could  not 
in  a  human  body  like  our  own  have  been  other  than 
a  localized  Christ.  Listening  to  one  man  on  one 
continent,  he  would  have  been  deaf  to  another's 
voice  on  some  separated  shore.  The  historical 
Christ  for  one  age,  he  needed  to  be  the  spiritual 
Christ  for  every  age  and  for  every  man.  But  di- 
vine attributes  go  together.  The  omniscience  of  a 
perpetual  presence  needs  the  Omnipotence  of  one 
who  can  fulfil  a  perpetual  promise.  For  him  to 
have  been  simply  a  superhuman  being,  higher  than 
man,  lower  than  God,  would  have  met  no  single 
want  of  man's  deeper  nature.  He  would  be  unlike 
us.  We  could  not  apprehend  him  at  all.  But  be- 
cause he  is  one  of  us,  the  purer  our  human  thought 
the  more  complete  the  apprehension  of  the  perfected 
character  in  Jesus  Christ.  To  men  in  the  uttermost 
ages  and  in  the  uttermost  of  their  moral  wants,  this 
Christ  makes  his  appeal  of  similarity  of  being.     He 


144  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

offers  both  human  and  divine  sympathies  and  sat- 
isfactions. The  unchangeable  Christ  is  able  to  meet 
the  demands  of  the  successive  ages  of  mankind — 
"  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever."  And 
so  here  again,  in  this  very  important  respect  also, 
the  subjective  in  human  thought  meets  the  objective 
in  the  perfect  Christ. 

In  still  another  way  Jesus  was  the  perpetual 
Christ.  Perpetually  the  idea  of  him  stood  in  God's 
thought.  And  God's  thought  of  him  had  been  re- 
flected with  more  or  less  distinctness  in  the  mirror 
of  human  thought.  The  divine  idea  sought  expres- 
sion and  the  human  idea  expected  to  find  it  some- 
where expressed.  In  physical  phenomena  we  see 
always  an  idea  from  the  world  of  mind  descending 
and  seeking  embodiment  in  the  world  of  matter. 
In  spiritual  phenomena  we  see  the  same  tendency 
as  God  is  manifesting  himself  in  the  human  being 
composed  of  body  and  soul.  And  the  principle 
holds  good  in  historic  as  well  as  in  personal  phenom- 
ena. All  the  noblest  men  in  dim  heathenism  and 
in  Hebrew  monotheism  are  anticipatory.  The  great 
lawgiver  Moses,  the  great  prophet  Elijah,  with 
their  companions  in  Hebrew  revelation,  are  so  many 
morning  rays  lifting  themselves  in  the  eastern  sky 
and  betokening  the  sun  which  was  to  rise  where  the 
Christ  should  come.  The  prophecy  is  in  the  men 
themselves  as  well  as  in  their  words.  The  per- 
petual anticipation  found  its  fulfilment  and  the  long 
preparation  found  its  complete  and  happy  fruition 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I45 

as  Jesus,  the  Christ,  met  all  the  conditions.  And 
what  he  has  been  he  will  be.  He  cannot  change  in 
all  the  coming  ages.  There  can  be  no  presence  more 
permanent  than  that  of  him  who  is  able  to  "  save 
unto  the  uttermost  "  time. 

Moreover,  Jesus  Christ  has  met  the  requirement 
in  human  thought  for  vitality  in  religion.  When 
once  spiritual  life  has  been  communicated,  ritualistic 
forms  may  have  a  certain  degree  of  moral  worth, 
but  they  can  never  be  the  substitutes  for  life  itself. 
To  put  them  in  place  of  life  is  to  make  a  con- 
servatory out  of  paper  flowers.  And  even  the 
splendid  moralities  of  exact  and  upright  conduct  can 
content  the  man  only  partially.  Alone  they  are 
the  statue  which  no  art  of  the  sculptor  can  make  to 
live.  The  marble  will  not  belie  its  own  silence.  Its 
eyes  of  stone  and  its  lips  of  stone,  however  cun- 
ning the  work  of  the  artist,  are  only  stone  eyes  and 
lips  after  all.  When  an  unassisted  man  is  the  sculp- 
tor of  his  own  character,  he  is  liable  to  judge  of 
it  with  the  utmost  of  partiality,  and  to  be  proud  of 
the  supposed  moral  worth  of  his  achievement.  But 
the  great  heart  in  man  will  not  long  remain  without 
uttering  the  cry  for  genuine  life. 

But  life,  so  says  all  science,  comes  only  from 
life.  It  has  to  be  communicated.  Look  at  the  hu- 
man soul.  See  how  it  is  organized  for  spiritual 
uses.  Its  powers  are  adapted  to  a  kind  of  life  that 
is  larger  in  quantity  as  well  as  higher  in  quality 
than  the  merely  natural  soul  life.     It  has  the  nat- 


I46  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

ural  soul  life,  i.  e.,  the  existence  of  faculty,  even 
when  wholly  under  the  dominion  of  evil.  What  is 
needed  is  a  new  spiritual  communication  of  the 
highest  kind  of  soul  life;  the  life  of  God  in  the 
soul.  There  is  often  a  sharp  and  painful  sense  in 
men  of  the  need  of  a  deep-down  spiritual  life;  a 
life  in  the  center  of  all  thought  and  feeling;  a  life 
that  is  of  the  same  moral  kind  as  that  of  God  him- 
self. The  faculty  for  this  new  kind  of  life — let  us 
call  it  spiritual  life — is  in  every  man.  The  niche 
is  there,  left  by  the  architect,  but  it  is  often  unfilled ; 
the  capacity  exists,  but  it  is  unused.  There  is  in 
the  better  moods  of  human  thought,  in  those  moods 
that  are  nearest  the  normal  in  their  insight  into 
selfhood,  the  consciousness  of  a  wrong  vitality.  Hu- 
man literature  in  its  sanest  utterances  makes  the 
confession  of  this  "  spot  of  deadness  "  in  us,  as  a 
thing  so  certainly  true  that  a  man  has  only  to 
utter  a  cry  of  this  regret,  for  the  great  universal 
human  heart  to  recognize  the  fitness  of  the  utter- 
ance. "  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,"  cries  a  Hebrew 
poet.  A  Roman  poet  sings,  "  I  see  and  approve 
the  better,  but  I  follow  the  worse."  And  there  is 
also  the  well-known  saying  of  Epictetus,  "  What 
he  (man)  wishes  he  does  not  do,  and  what  he  does 
not  wish,  that  he  does."  And  Paul's  personification 
of  the  universal  man  is  familiar,  "  For  I  know 
that  in  me,  that  is,  in  my  flesh  " — my  merely  human 
nature — "  dwelleth  no  good  thing."  And  again  he 
speaks,  after  his  Master,  of  certain  men  as  spirit- 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I47 

ually  "  dead,"  and  then  of  these  same  "  dead  "  men 
as  "  made  alive  "  spiritually.  The  deep  and  earnest 
thought  of  the  ages,  alike  in  Christian  and  in 
heathen  literature,  is  at  one  in  these  confessions. 
There  is  a  part  of  our  human  nature  that  is  unre- 
sponsive, just  as  the  dead  tree  is  unresponsive  to 
the  spring  shower  or  the  summer  sun.  But  it  is  a 
kind  of  deadness  for  which  we  all  feel  responsible. 
It  is  the  soul  standing,  as  it  were,  above  itself  and 
looking  down  into  itself  and  discovering  blindness 
where  there  should  be  vision ;  deadness  where  there 
should  be  life.  It  is  as  if  a  second  self  which 
sees  were  calling  to  account  a  first  self,  because  it 
does  not  see  that  it  is  dead  to  what  it  ought  to 
be  most  alive.  And  the  question  comes,  is  there 
anywhere  a  touch  that  will  give  moral  resurrection  ? 
Is  there  anywhere  a  soul  so  alive  that  it  can  impart 
its  life  to  another  soul?  That  is  the  great  demand. 
And  right  over  against  this  experience  of  dead- 
ness there  is  another  experience.  It  is  that  of  life. 
Untold  millions  of  the  human  race  claim  "  the 
Christian  experience."  Something  has  come  vitally 
to  them.  Psychologically  it  has  been  described  as 
the  coming  into  their  minds  of  a  new  and  opposite 
idea — a  new  dominating  thought  that  controls  the 
whole  inner  and  outer  life.  They  have  experienced 
"  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection."  But  to 
these  persons  themselves  the  psychological  concep- 
tion does  not  express  the  whole  fact,  since  it  omits 
the  recognition  of  personality.    So  too,  some  would 


I48  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

express  this  experience  in  terms  of  "  the  philosophy 
of  self -negation,"  i.  e.,  the  getting  out  of  self.  But 
is  there  anything  harder  than  for  self  by  itself  to 
get  out  of  self?  Goethe's  idea  of  "the  over-soul" 
and  Carlyle's  much-lauded  "  scorn  of  the  wrong 
and  worship  of  the  strong,"  and  Emerson's  "  power 
of  culture  "  have  all  been  invoked  to  explain  the 
undeniable  phenomenon  of  a  new  force  at  the  center 
of  a  man's  being,  acting,  as  it  were,  dynamically. 
And  yet  to  make  the  better  part  of  one's  own  self 
a  god  is  no  less  an  idolatry  than  to  make  the  baser ; 
and  in  neither  case  is  there  the  actual  "  going  out  of 
self,"  which  is  the  thing  so  much  commended.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  men  with  this  new  experience 
of  a  new  interior  life  have  a  distinct  apprehension 
of  a  new  power  from  without  acting  upon  and 
within  them.  Once  dead,  so  far  as  any  fit  response 
was  concerned,  toward  their  God,  they  have  a  new 
spiritual  life,  divinely  communicated.  They  ascribe 
this  communication  to  a  person.  They  say  that  he 
has  come  into  their  personal  life  in  its  deepest 
depths.  The  new  life  was  not  the  natural  result  of 
a  process.  Rather  it  started  a  process.  They  tes- 
tify that  God,  through  his  Son  Jesus  Christ  has 
come  into  their  inner  life;  and  they  affirm  that  this 
has  been  more  than  their  own  resolve  to  imitate  a 
good  model,  but  that  it  is  the  experience  of  a  new 
vitality  from  the  touch  of  another  soul.  They  say 
that  the  soul  who  has  thus  come  into  touch  with 
their  soul  is  God. 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I49 

But  just  here  comes  a  reluctance  on  the  part  of 
some  men  of  large  and  deep  religious  experience 
to  use  the  terms  which  others  venture  to  employ 
when  they  speak  of  "  the  God-consciousness."  God 
is  so  great  with  a  far-away  greatness  that  it  is  no 
wonder  some  men  shrink  and  hesitate.  Nor  are 
they  helped  by  any  emphasis  on  the  divine  im- 
manence. So  too,  the  invisibility  hinders.  There 
may  be  the  worship  of  a  profound  reverence.  But 
to  many  the  nearness  and  the  communion  seem,  at 
the  outset,  to  be  too  familiar.  They  do  not  dare 
claim  it.  But  shall  God  veil  himself  for  them? 
That  would  be  further  hindrance.  If,  however, 
God  shall  reveal  himself  in  becoming  man,  that 
would  indeed  be  the  overcoming  of  all  reluctance. 
That  would  be  a  transaction  in  human  history  bridg- 
ing all  the  distance;  that  would  be  an  objective 
fact  corresponding  to  a  subjective  need.  The  Greek 
in  the  early  days  of  Christianity  met  the  advances 
of  the  new  religion  by  the  strong  plea  that  the  doc- 
trine of  the  one  only  God  was  unsympathetic. 
Above  us,  away  from  us,  with  the  concerns  of  vast 
worlds  on  his  hands,  he  had  other  work  to  do  than 
that  claimed  for  him  in  coming  into  the  personality 
of  each  man.  And  so  the  Greek  urged  that  his  own 
gods  were  gods  who  dwelt  on  every  mountain  and 
in  every  valley;  that  not  only  was  the  air  and  earth 
and  sky  filled  with  his  innumerable  gods,  but  that 
there  were  household  gods  for  every  humblest  dwell- 
ing, and  that  a  god  was  always  near  and  his  image 


150  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

was  always  visible.  True,  the  Christian  might  an- 
swer that  an  almighty  and  omniscient  God  must,  by 
the  very  definition  of  him,  be  never  wanting  in  near- 
ness. But  the  believer  in  the  one  God  who  was  for- 
bidden to  make  any  visible  image  of  him,  whatever 
logic  he  might  use  with  the  Greek,  could  not  over- 
come in  the  minds  of  other  men  the  feeling  of  in- 
visibility, of  distance,  of  isolation,  of  a  greatness 
so  great  that  the  one  God  would  seem  unsympa- 
thetic to  the  mass  of  mankind.  Happily,  however, 
the  Christian,  in  his  objective  Christ,  had  an  ad- 
ditional argument ;  had  a  mighty  historic  fact  in 
reserve,  and  with  it  he  could  vanquish  his  Greek 
opponent. 

One  section  of  ancient  religious  thought  was  al- 
most fiercely  monotheistic.  The  Jewish  nation  held 
to  the  one  God  who  was  declared  to  be  both  trans- 
cendent and  immanent,  i.  e.,  over  and  in  all  things. 
But  at  times,  for  certain  men,  this  immanence  was 
unduly  emphasized ;  and  so  it  engendered  then,  as 
now,  in  other  than  Jewish  thought,  that  tendency 
to  subjectivism  which  in  the  end  leads  men  to 
worship  and  even  to  pray  to  the  God  within  one's 
self — a  step  reached  in  certain  milder  forms  of 
"  new  thought,"  in  which  a  man  unconsciously 
makes  himself  a  god,  and  thinks  that  communing 
with  his  own  self  is  the  same  thing  as  communing 
with  the  one  self-existing  God. 

But  if  the  idea  of  the  Essenes  in  Christ's  day 
had  been  due  to  wrong  emphasis  on  the  immanence 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    151 

of  God,  there  was  also  the  fruit  of  a  wrong  de- 
velopment from  an  excessive  emphasis  on  the  di- 
vine transcendence.  The  people  ever  since  the  wor- 
ship of  the  golden  calf  at  the  foot  of  Sinai  had 
craved  some  visible  emblem  of  God.  Spiritual  wor- 
ship was  hard  to  be  maintained  amid  surrounding 
idolaters  who  had  statues  of  their  gods  cut  in  wood 
or  stone.  The  statue  soon  came,  in  that  age  as  in 
every  other,  to  be  no  more  a  symbol,  but  the  very 
god  himself  to  the  worshiper.  Hence,  the  constant 
interdiction  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  against  idol- 
atry. The  Sinaitic  command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  make 
unto  thee  any  graven  image,"  was  repeated  age 
after  age,  to  correct  the  constant  tendency  to 
idolatrous  forms  of  objective  worship.  Carefully 
guarded  were  all  the  ritualistic  requirements  of  the 
Hebrew  religion  against  this  danger  of  slipping 
down  from  the  worship  of  the  spiritual  to  the 
physical.  The  altar  even  must  not  bear  the  name  of 
Jehovah  graven  on  it.  And  so  through  Hebrew 
history  the  two  tendencies  strove  for  the  mastery. 
But  gradually  the  people  came  to  understand 
what  all  this  restriction  on  the  one  side  and  on 
the  other  was  intended  to  teach.  A  new  objective 
fact  was  to  occur.  In  their  own  land  and  among 
their  own  people  there  was  to  be  a  real  and  objective 
visibility.  It  was  not  to  be  carved  in  stone.  It 
was  not  to  be  a  material  thing.  It  was  not  to  be 
a  temple.  It  was  to  be  "  greater  than  the  temple." 
A  new  Person  was  to  appear.     He  was  to  be  a 


152  THE   MATURE   MAN  S  DIFFICULTIES 

man — and  more.  The  one  "  Son  of  man  "  was  to 
be  the  one  "  Son  of  God,"  in  some  coming  happy 
age.  A  great  bow  of  promise  bent  athwart  their 
whole  sky.  There  would  be  no  need  of  a  physical 
idol ;  no  need  of  the  soul's  worship  of  itself.  Tran- 
scendence and  immanence  were  to  be  both  perfectly 
given  in  this  coming  One.  He  was  to  be  "  the 
light "  not  only  for  "  his  people,"  but  "  for  the 
Gentiles."  No  such  person  had  ever  appeared.  No 
other  such  person  would  ever  be  needed  after  he 
should  come. 

The  primal  promise  was  of  a  "  seed  "  to  be  seen 
germinating  through  the  long  centuries  of  Hebrew 
literature.  There  were  preparatory  theophanies, 
each  an  advance  upon  its  predecessor.  They  indi- 
cated that  a  Person  was  to  be  born  who,  according 
to  one  conception,  should  be  a  Deliverer,  according 
to  another  a  Messiah,  according  to  yet  another  a 
Saviour.  All  great  and  beautiful  nomenclature 
gathered  itself  about  this  "  coming  One."  Heaven 
and  earth  could  not  furnish  enough  of  the  grand 
and  the  glorious  and  blessed  to  prefigure  him.  All 
language  was  exhausted  in  the  effort  to  describe  him 
as  the  visible  Revealer  of  the  invisible  God.  And 
it  was  by  this  conception,  so  deep  and  abiding,  of 
a  coming  Person,  that  Hebrew  thought  was  kept 
from  disobeying  the  prohibition  against  constructing 
any  graven  image  of  Jehovah.  The  subjective  feel- 
ing unless  it  has  objective  reality  inevitably  reacts, 
and  its  God  becomes  merely  the  philosopher's  god 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    153 

— a  thought;  or  the  scientist's  god — a  law;  or  the 
monist's  god — one's  self.  In  none  of  these  concep- 
tions is  God  the  life-giving  God  who  comes  home 
to  men's  souls ;  the  personally  objective  God  who 
can  touch  with  the  hand  of  a  divine  alteration  the 
deepest  springs  of  human  feeling  and  make  the 
man  "  go  out  of  himself "  in  the  noblest  of  all 
conceivable  spiritual  life. 

See  now  how  Jesus  Christ,  and  he  alone,  can 
rectify  all  these  errors,  can  meet  all  these  needs, 
when  he  is  revealed  as  "  the  Life." 

He  comes  as  an  actual  Person  into  the  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  life  of  the  race.  He  exactly 
meets  in  this  respect  the  demand  of  human  thought. 
He  is  not  angelic  nor  is  he  superangelic.  Such  a 
one  would  not  compass  the  conditions.  He  is  a 
man.  Only  as  he  comes  into  the  race  by  the  gate- 
way of  a  human  birth  can  he  be  a  man  at  all.  Jesus 
is  born.  No  better  way  for  his  coming  can  be 
conceived  of  even  by  the  broadest  imagination  than 
that  described  briefly,  chastely,  tenderly,  positively, 
in  the  New  Testament  story  of  the  virgin  birth. 
The  two  evangelists  who,  from  their  chosen  point 
of  view  and  from  their  object  in  writing,  should  be 
expected  to  describe  it  are  represented  as  doing  so. 
And  equally  the  two  who,  from  their  different  plan 
and  purpose  have  omitted  it  are  the  ones  whose 
Gospels  would  have  awakened  suspicion  had  they 
inserted  it.  The  marvelous  childhood,  so  unlike 
that  devised  for  the  Christ  in  the  spurious  gospels  of 


154  THE   MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

the  second  and  third  centuries,  but  so  perfectly 
blending  his  obedience  to  his  mother  and  that  to 
his  God,  has  attracted  the  thought  of  the  whole 
race.  And  the  teaching  of  his  mature  years,  coming 
not  from  the  study  of  the  world's  masters  in  ethics, 
but  surpassing  them  all,  is  the  true  outcome  of  his 
own  spiritual  life.  And  this  is  his  mission,  to 
start  the  same  kind  of  life  in  other  souls.  He,  a 
person,  teaches  the  deepest  secret  of  spiritual  per- 
sonality. Much  of  what  he  says  is  of  the  directly 
personal  character.  He  discourses  of  himself  as  he 
is  related  on  the  one  hand  to  God's  self  and  on  the 
other  hand  to  the  deepest  self  of  those  to  whom 
he  speaks.  "  I  say  unto  you  "  is  his  constant  utter- 
ance. He  puts  religion  in  the  soul.  He  says  it  is 
a  "  birth  from  above  " ;  he  urges  that  men  must  be 
"  twice  born."  But  being  born  is  entrance  into  life. 
And  he,  coming  from  above,  proposes  to  give  this 
new  kind  of  soul-life  as  out  of  himself.  He  came 
"  that  men  might  have  life,  and  have  it  abundantly." 
Very  striking  are  Christ's  utterances  about  "  life." 
There  is  an  intensity  in  his  use  of  the  word  that 
we  must  not  allow  to  escape  our  notice.  To  a  com- 
pany of  opposers  he  one  day  said,  "  Ye  have  no  life 
in  you."  There  could  have  been  no  reference  to 
their  physical  existence,  for  they  were  in  vigorous 
bodily  life.  Nor  yet  was  there  any  reference  to 
their  mental  existence,  for  they  were  addressed  by 
him  as  those  capable  mentally  of  understanding  his 
words.    And  he  could  not  have  denied  their  moral 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    155 

existence,  for  they,  like  all  other  men,  were  in  pos- 
session of  an  ethical  life  that  is  indestructible. 
What  Christ  said  on  another  occasion  may  explain 
his  meaning.  He  said,  "  I  give  unto  them  eternal 
life."  Had  he  meant  to  stir  them  into  moral  action 
on  the  plane  of  their  natural  ethical  faculties,  he 
would  have  urged  them  to  personal  moral  exertion. 
But  he  speaks  of  bringing  to  them  and  giving  to 
them  something  that  was  originally  his  own,  but 
was  bestowed  upon  certain  persons  as  "  believers  " 
in  him.  He  will  plant  in  them,  as  seed  is  planted  in 
the  earth,  a  new  principle  that  is  far  more  than 
any  mere  natural  exercise  of  their  natural  soul 
faculty.  It  is  a  potency  using  the  capacities  of  the 
man  in  a  new  way  and  in  a  higher  sphere  of  things. 
It  is  designated  as  "  newness  of  life."  Those  who 
receive  it  are  described  as  "  partakers  of  the  divine 
nature."  It  is  said  Christ  is  "  in  them  " ;  and  this 
can  only  mean,  not  our  poor  imitation  of  him,  but 
his  indwelling  in  us.  Assuming  everywhere  that 
the  intuition  of  immortality  was  in  men,  he  spoke 
of  a  kind  of  immortality — the  immortality  of  the 
holy  soul — as  alone  deserving  the  name  of  "  life." 
Among  his  other  utterances  on  this  matter  of  the 
one  holy,  immortal  life,  which  he  conceived  of  as  be- 
ginning here  and  now  and  as  extending  onward 
beyond  this  world,  he  said,  "  This  is  life  eternal  that 
they  might  know  thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus 
Christ  whom  thou  hast  sent."  In  that  age — and  the 
world  has  similar  ages — there  had  been  a  kind  of 


I56  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

religiousness  that  was  merely  imitative.  It  had  asked 
for  models.  It  had  its  ideals  to  be  copied.  So 
paper  flowers  tied  on  wire  stems  might  be  stuck 
into  your  carefully  prepared  flower-bed.  They  are 
skilful  imitations  of  genuine  flowers.  They  are 
ideally  perfect  in  form  and  color.  They  must,  in- 
deed, be  kept  from  the  rain ;  for  the  rain  that  nour- 
ishes a  true  flower  reduces  your  paper  imitation  to 
a  mass  of  pulp.  They  must  be  kept  from  the  sun, 
or  the  color  fades.  So  there  is  a  religiousness  that 
talks  always  of  ideals.  Among  men  in  Christ's  day, 
the  ideals  were  the  Old  Testament  worthies ;  among 
men  in  our  day  the  ideal  may  be  Christian  saints, 
or  even  Christ  himself  in  his  outward  life.  But 
such  imitation  apart  from  something  deeper  is  just 
the  paper  flower  on  the  wire  stem.  The  true  flower 
grows  from  a  root  and  produces  a  stalk  and  leaf 
and  blossom.  It  has  its  own  inward  life.  Time 
was  in  the  old  geological  ages  when  all  the  soils 
of  the  earth  were  just  soils,  with  all  potencies  in 
them  for  the  vegetation  of  the  whole  world ;  but 
there  was  not  an  atom  of  actual  vegetation.  God 
thrust  in  life — vegetative  life.  And  lo!  tree  and 
shrub  and  all  the  widespread  verdure  of  the  world. 
Souls  in  like  manner  have  their  potentiality.  And 
into  them  can  be  thrust  a  new  spiritual  life.  This 
is  Christ's  work,  as  the  life-giver.  And  when  he 
does  it,  then  potentiality  becomes  actuality  in  a 
spiritual  sonship  of  God. 
Vitality  is  the  greatest  human  need  in  religion. 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    Itf 

And  this  idea  of  imparting  a  true  inward  life  was 
the  special  presentation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
world.  It  was  his  one  thought  about  which  all  else 
gathered.  One  need  not  have  any  belief  in  the  di- 
vine inspiration  of  the  evangelists ;  he  need  not  re- 
gard their  work  as  of  other  authority  than  those  of 
ordinarily  fair  historians  to  recognize  the  great  em- 
phasis Jesus  put  on  this  idea  of  life.  "  I  am  the 
living  bread  which  came  down  from  heaven.  .  . 
giveth  life  .  .  .  shall  have  life  everlasting,"  are  a 
few  of  the  many  utterances  of  like  import  ascribed 
to  him;  and  he  crowns  them  all  by  saying,  in  true 
character  with  all  his  words  and  deeds,  "  I  am  the 
life."  And  the  life  in  him  is  communicable.  Splen- 
did statuary  is  found  in  many  an  artist's  studio. 
"Make  it  live;  it  does  everything  else,"  said  a 
critic  to  a  sculptor,  as  he  stood  before  the  finished 
statue.  "  Ah,"  was  the  reply,  "  would  that  I  could ; 
you  ask  what  only  God  can  do."  But  human  faculty 
and  human  thought  has  this  capacity  of  being  di- 
vinely kindled  into  spiritual  life.  The  representation 
that  makes  Jesus  use  so  constantly  the  preposition 
"  in,"  when  speaking  of  his  relation  to  his  disciples, 
is  remarkable.  He  is  to  be  "  in  "  them  as  life  in  the 
vine-stock  is  communicated  to  life  in  the  branches 
of  the  vine ;  "  in  "  them,  as  food  is  in  the  body  of 
which  it  becomes  a  part ;  in  them  as  vitally  as  God 
was  in  him — all  this  is  the  constant  tone  of  his 
teaching,  and  it  is  not  true  of  the  utterances  of 
any  other  teacher  who  ever  stood  on  the  planet. 


I58  THE   MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

Indeed,  it  would  be  felt  as  disgustingly  egoistic 
in  any  other  person ;  but  it  awakens  exactly  the  op- 
posite feeling  when  Christ  says  all  this  about  him- 
self. The  evangelists  could  neither  have  invented 
nor  depicted  such  a  conception  of  a  communicated 
moral  life.  Jesus  spoke  in  accordance  with  his 
whole  character  and  teaching  when  he  said  that  he 
was  "  the  life  of  the  world."  He  is  not  speaking  of 
the  lesser  and  lower  fact  that  he  was  to  give  a 
model  for  man's  imitation.  But  he  is  going  to  be- 
stow a  kind  of  moral  life — the  kind  that  is  central 
in  God — upon  men.  He  is  going  to  do  more  than 
to  come  near.  There  is  always  a  little  film  of  air 
between  the  palms  that  are  pressed  closest  in  friend- 
ship. He  comes  nearer  than  that.  He  is  to  be  the 
Christ  "  within  you."  And  all  this  is  worse  than 
insensate  in  a  claim  so  constant  that,  if  we  know 
anything  about  him  he  certainly  made  it,  unless  we 
take  his  teaching,  in  the  way  he  evidently  meant  it 
to  be  taken,  as  expressing  the  closest  possible  rela- 
tion, his  actual  coming  into  one's  personality,  and 
that  not  in  a  way  to  destroy,  but  to  enlarge  it.  One 
of  his  apostles  expresses  it  in  this  way,  "  Christ 
liveth  in  me."  And  such  words  are  the  fit  words 
about  him  who  called  himself  "  the  life." 

Moreover,  he  made  this  peculiarity  of  the  interi- 
brity  of  religion — an  interiority  coming  from  the 
entrance  of  not  only  a  new  principle,  but  a  new 
personality,  into  the  very  soul  of  his  followers — a 
differentiating  fact  of  his  religion.     Take  the  case 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    159 

of  the  foremost  men  of  Christ's  own  century.  He 
certainly  did  leave  this  as  his  profound  impression 
upon  them,  that  he  gave  to  men  a  special  interior 
life.  Paul  said  that  "  God  revealed  his  Son  in  me." 
The  book  misnamed  "  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles," 
is  really  the  record  of  "  Christ  the  Spirit,"  as  he 
lived  in  men's  souls,  after  he  had  lived  among  men 
in  bodily  form.  Paul  writes  that  God  "  gave  life  to 
us  in  giving  life  to  Christ."  *  And  the  history  of 
spiritual  religion  in  the  world  is  the  continuation  of 
the  record.  In  millions  of  instances  there  has  been 
wrought  a  conviction  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  prom- 
ise, "  I  am  with  you."  Sometimes  intellectual  ap- 
prehension has  come  first.  But  often  the  nimblest 
logic  has  been  that  of  the  heart.  Some  One  has 
been  revealed.  The  light  has  not  been  the  discovery 
of  new  principles  so  much  as  the  discovery  of  a 
new  person.  There  has  been  a  verification  of  the 
great  historical  facts;  the  subjective  has  found  its 
objective.  The  Christ  of  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago  has  come  to  be  a  present  Christ,  imparting  to- 
day this  new  inward  life.  The  Epistles  of  the  New 
Testament  addressed  to  Christians,  in  reminding 
them  of  their  experience  in  the  religion  of  Christ, 
take  it  for  granted  that  they  all  believe  in  this  di- 
vine indwelling.  These  Christians  are  exhorted  to 
remember  that  Christ  is  "  in  them  the  hope  of 
glory  " ;  that  the  "  Spirit  of  Christ  is  in  them "  ; 
that   they   have   in  their   hearts   "  the   witness   of 

iEph.  1  :  5. 


l60  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

the  Spirit."  Indeed,  the  indwelling  of  Christ  and 
the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  so  connected 
in  the  representation  that  a  verse  may  begin  with 
the  one  form  of  words  and  end  with  the  other. 
And  Christ  speaks  not  only  of  coming  to  his  dis- 
ciples, but  of  "  abiding  in  them  and  they  in  him." 
Words  cannot  be  used  that  shall  describe  a  closer 
intimacy  than  these.  They  declare  that  Christ  is 
in  his  disciples  in  a  very  vital  sense  which,  so  far 
from  interfering  with  their  personality,  really  ex- 
pands it.  It  may  be  true  that  many  good  Chris- 
tians need  to  enter  more  fully  into  the  experiential 
knowledge  of  what  they  know  only  in  an  elemental 
way ;  that  they  are,  in  turn,  so  to  be  in  him  as  to 
make  their  religion  a  thoroughly  vitalized  thing. 
Happily,  some  do  this ;  and  their  spiritual  life  throbs 
in  unison  with  the  heart  of  Christ. 

II.  In  all  the  better  human  thought  there  is  a  de- 
mand not  only  for  life,  but  also  for  light.  In  us 
is  a  consciousness  that  we  know  just  enough  in  the 
moral  realm  of  things  to  need  to  know  more.  It 
is  a  knowledge  of  our  ignorance  that  makes  us,  in 
our  best  moods,  willing  to  be  taught.  Intellectually 
we  all  start  in  crudeness,  but  we  are  disciplined  into 
careful  and  exact  thought  by  teachers.  They  give 
us  facts  and  show  us  how  to  use  them.  The  out- 
come of  genuine  teaching  is  trust  in  those  who,  in 
addition  to  larger  opportunities,  larger  experience, 
and  larger  knowledge,  are  shown  to  be  worthy  of 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    l6l 

our  confidence.  We  are  so  situated  that  it  becomes 
a  reasonable  thing  to  have  regard  to  the  conclusions 
of  specialists.  And  we  are  so  constituted  and  so 
circumstanced  as  to  need,  in  religion  above  all  things 
else,  a  specialist,  if  we  would  know  definitely  and 
largely  about  these  things  of  the  very  highest  con- 
cern to  us.  Trust  in  one's  self  can  go  but  a  little 
way  here;  and  trust  in  others  can  go  but  little 
farther  in  these  matters.     Browning  sings : 

Now  who  shall  arbitrate? 

Ten  men  love  what  I  hate, 

Shun  what  I  follow,  slight  what  I  receive — 

Ten  who,  in  ears  and  eyes, 

Match  me;  we  all  surmise, 

They,  this  thing;  and  I,  that.     Whom 

Shall  my  soul  believe? 

We  are  made  up  less  like  the  oak  that  stands 
by  itself,  and  more  like  the  ivy  that  clings  to  it. 
Capacity  to  be  taught  means  here  need  of  a  teacher. 
We  begin  by  knowing  something  through  native  in- 
sight. We  add  a  little  by  practical  experience.  We 
get  something  still  further  as  it  has  expressed  itself 
in  the  literature  of  past  centuries.  But  perhaps  our 
largest  acquirement  is  the  knowledge  that  in  re- 
ligion we  need  "  a  teacher  sent  from  God."  How 
much  such  a  one  could  settle!  How  many  things 
we  could  trust  with  such  a  Teacher!  It  might 
wound,  at  first,  our  poor  human  pride  to  have  to 
submit  all  our  opinions  to  him ;  and  to  have  to 
receive,  on  questions  above  our  human  solution,  his 

L 


l62  THE   MATURE   MAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 

dictum,  taking  from  him  our  beliefs,  his  word  the 
end  of  all  controversy,  and  we  being  just  simply 
his  disciples;  but  if  it  would  harm  our  pride,  it 
would  amazingly  help  our  certainty  and  our  satis- 
faction. In  religion  we  can  see  that  the  most  rea- 
sonable thing  to  do  would  be  to  make  such  a  Christ 
the  ultimate  and  absolute  authority.  It  would  be 
true,  perhaps,  that  such  a  conversion  from  self  to 
him  would  be  the  hardest  thing  to  accomplish  in  a 
self-willed  man;  but  it  would  be  falling  up  the 
altar  stairs  toward  God  and  his  Christ.  This  is 
not  degradation;  it  is  exaltation.  We  trust  men  in 
their  sphere  of  knowledge.  We  are  made  up  to  do 
so.  We  should  trust  God  in  his  sphere  of  knowl- 
edge. He  must  reveal  some  things  that  we  do  not 
understand;  else  why  any  revelation?  He  must 
reveal  some  things  which  apart  from  his  revelation 
we  would  not  believe.  If  not,  then  God  could  teach 
us  nothing  we  did  not  know  before. 

To  reject  his  teaching  on  that  account  would  be  to 
commit  the  folly  of  making  ourselves  gods.  Trust, 
in  some  circumstances,  is  highest  reason.  It  was 
so  in  regard  to  many  a  teaching  in  science  which 
seemed  opposed  to  all  our  early  ideas  of  things. 
But  we  yielded  to  the  teaching  of  those  whose  su- 
perior knowledge  of  the  facts  gave  weight  to  their 
conclusions.  In  the  domain  of  moral  facts,  God's 
horizon  must  be  so  broad  that  we  are  warranted  in 
standing  fast  to  his  statements  of  truth  in  matters 
that,  because  of  their  nature,  go  beyond  our  mental 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    163 

and  moral  ken.  As  in  physical  things,  so  in  spiritual 
things  we  must  own  divine  transcendence.  One  of 
the  wisest  of  the  ancients  said,  when  returning  a 
volume  loaned  to  him  by  a  friend,  that  the  parts 
of  it  he  could  understand  were  so  reasonable  he 
was  sure  the  part  he  did  not  understand  was 
not  foolish.  What  we  can  approve  in  God's  revela- 
tion is  so  consonant  with  reason  and  experience 
that  we  can  trust  him  when  his  revelations  are 
above  our  reasonings  and  experiences.  And  just 
here  we  see  the  fitness  both  of  God's  revelation 
and  indorsement  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  great 
Teacher,  and  of  our  acceptance  of  that  revelation 
and  indorsement. 

The  certitude  of  Christ  in  his  teachings  is  a  re- 
markable thing.  He  never  hesitates ;  never  ad- 
vances a  "  probable  opinion  "  ;  never  asks  us  to  ac- 
cept a  "working  hypothesis";  never  argues  the  case, 
except  to  confute  an  opponent  from  that  which 
an  opponent  has  admitted.  His  certitude  is  inex- 
plicable on  the  theory  that  he  is  to  be  classed  as 
a  merely  human  teacher.  Such  a  human  teacher, 
modestly,  on  the  greatest  problems,  advances  an 
opinion  "  as  the  best  that  can  now  be  said  on  this 
matter  as  the  result  of  all  our  investigation." 
But  Jesus  speaks  as  one  who  knows.  Some  of 
his  sayings  at  once  commend  themselves.  But 
even  when  this  is  the  case,  there  is  a  tone  that 
separates  them  from  the  utterances  of  others.  He 
left  an  impression  that  was  unique.     We  are  sure 


164  THE   MATURE   MAN*S  DIFFICULTIES 

from  what  he  says  and  the  way  he  says  it  that 
he  could  say  more.  We  see  that  he  could  easily 
go  very  far  beyond  us.  We  expect  him  to  make 
more  moral  disclosures.  And  if  he  shall  do  it,  he 
has  prepared  us  to  trust  him  in  his  utterances.  We 
feel  that  his  horizon  is  broader  than  ours.  His 
tone  in  every  word  is  that  of  one  from  another 
world,  and  we  are  not  surprised  to  hear  him  claim 
for  himself  preexistence  with  God,  and  that  he 
was  sent  out  from  God;  and  that  as  he  came  out 
from  heaven,  so  he  would  return  to  it.  When  he 
so  speaks,  he  speaks  in  character.  He  strangely 
and  yet  harmoniously  blends  the  sympathy  of  a 
human,  and  the  authority  of  a  divine,  Teacher.  He 
meets  men  on  their  own  level,  and  yet  he  also  leaves 
the  conviction  that  he  speaks  from  a  higher  level. 
His  language  is  human,  but  his  authority  is  divine. 
His  moral  character  is  behind  every  word.  His 
miracles  are  words  coined  into  the  form  of  deeds. 
Thinking  alone  of  the  clear  human  nature  he  ever 
manifested,  we  wonder  that  he  ever  does  his  deeds; 
and  thinking  alone  of  his  other  nature,  we  wonder 
at  his  reserve  in  miracle;  and  so  we  are  profoundly 
moved  by  the  happy  union  of  these  qualities  in 
which  they  suffer  no  contradiction.  He  harmonizes 
the  widest  contrasts. 

This  kind  of  a  teacher,  when  we  take  him  in  his 
wholeness,  refuses  to  be  put  in  any  of  our  lists  of 
merely  human  teachers.  He  must  not  be  quoted 
in  the  same  sentence  with  them.     He  stands  quite 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    165 

apart,  and  therefore  fulfils  the  demands  of  human 
thought.  He — he  only — does  not  surprise  us  when 
he  says,  "  I  am  the  light  of  the  world."  Taking, 
note  of  his  character,  we  can  trust  this  utterance 
of  his  own  consciousness  concerning  himself;  and 
we  find  this  declaration  to  be  not  only  in  perfect 
accord  with  his  whole  marvelous  life  as  depicted 
in  these  four  Gospels  written  from  the  reports  of 
eye-witnesses,  but  also  with  the  great  moral  pur- 
poses of  that  life  as  these  are  disclosed  in  the 
New  Testament  Epistles  written  after  his  earthly 
career  had  ended. 

In  the  introduction  of  his  Gospel,  John,  in  de- 
scribing the  beginning  of  Christ's  earthly  career, 
says :  "  The  true  Light,  which  lighteth  every  man, 
was  coming  into  the  world."  Then,  describing  the 
reception  Christ  met,  he  says  some  "  received  him  " 
and  some  "  received  him  not."  So  that  in  the  case 
of  both  classes  there  was  responsibility  in  view  of 
the  incoming  light.  In  both  cases  there  was  ca- 
pacity to  be  lighted.  The  soul  is  made  on  purpose 
to  receive  a  superior  light.  Its  whole  range  of 
faculty  is  indicative.  Its  aspirations  in  all  best, 
truest,  most  normal  moments  show  a  being  who  is 
not  his  own  end.  Even  in  the  wholeness  of  its 
powers  the  human  soul  is  not  a  completion,  but 
an  implication.  It  is  divinely  made  up  to  be  di- 
vinely lighted  up.  It  can  be  touched  into  a  flame 
by  receiving  the  touch  of  him  who  is  the  Light  of 
the  world.     In   John's   suggestive   words,    it   was 


l66  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

planned  that  the  Light  should  "  overcome  the  dark- 
ness." It  began  to  do  this  in  the  case  of  the  few 
who  first  "  received  him."  It  is  to  be  an  overcoming 
power  as  through  the  ages  men,  "  coming  to  them- 
selves," see  their  capacities  and  their  aspirations 
first  enlarged  and  ennobled,  and  then  perfectly  sat- 
isfied in  Jesus  Christ  as  both  the  Light  and  the  Life. 
The  morally  fit  in  the  end  will  be  found  to  be 
the  logically  true. 

One  cannot  help,  pausing  at  this  point  just  a 
moment,  asking  whence  arose  such  a  conception? 
How  did  it  ever  come  into  this  realm  of  human 
thought  ?  Has  human  thought  created  a  conception 
greater  than  the  conception  which  divine  thought 
could  make  real  in  our  world?  Is  man  in  his  idea 
of  such  a  Christ  greater  than  God  in  his  realiza- 
tion of  it  ?  It  cannot  be  so.  And  yet  this  unique  con- 
ception, that  has  both  amazed  and  delighted  fore- 
most moral  thought  in  all  the  past  Christian  cen- 
turies and  has  brought  this  amazement  and  delight 
to  a  higher  degree  of  experience  in  our  own  age 
than  ever  before — this  conception  is  founded  on 
these  Gospels  as  they  depict  this  Person  who  claims 
to  be  both  the  Life  and  the  Light  of  the  world.  State 
it  either  way.  Say  the  conception  is  impossible 
without  the  Gospels,  or  say  that  these  Gospels 
were  impossible  without  such  a  conception  as  was 
originally  realized  in  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  the  result  is  the  same. 

Nor    were    his    teachings    culled    from    human 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    167 

sources.  One  never  thinks  of  Jesus  as  a  scholar 
laboriously  extracting  from  the  world's  great  mas- 
ters the  best  moral  teachings  and  using  them  in  his 
discourse.  There  is,  indeed,  the  precision  in  his 
words  which  shows  an  early  training  in  the  careful 
use  of  language.  And  he  is  at  home  in  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures.  He  knows  something  of  the 
rabbinical  expositions,  disquisitions,  and  traditions 
current  in  his  day.  But  of  those  vast  stores  of 
intellectual  and  moral  research  which  existed  at 
that  time  and  which  are  to-day  studied  by  those 
whom  the  world  justly  calls  "  learned  men,"  he  ex- 
hibits no  knowledge.  Nor  is  this  apparent  igno- 
rance to  be  urged  against  the  position  of  those  who 
claim  for  him  a  true  divinity.  What  such  claimants 
need  to  insist  upon  is,  that  all  he  needed  at  any 
one  moment  to  know  of  human  and  of  divine  knowl- 
edge for  his  mission,  he  at  that  one  moment  cer- 
tainly knew.  Momentary  obscuration  concerning 
other  matters  only  shows  the  necessary  limitations 
of  his  peculiar  earthly  mission.  Some  of  the  fore- 
most thinkers  of  the  world  have  not  been  the 
world's  foremost  scholars.  Their  logic  has  been 
not  the  less  logical  because  not  a  formal  logic.  Keen- 
ness of  mind,  ability  to  think  a  thing  through,  even- 
ness of  judgment  as  to  related  subjects,  have  stood 
them  in  good  stead  rather  than  varied  knowledge  of 
what  the  leaders  of  human  opinion  have  thought 
in  the  realms  of  morals  and  religion.  The  unique- 
ness of  Christ's  character,   mission,   and  situation 


l68  THE   MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

all  require  of  him  originality  of  thought  rather 
than  wide  human  learning.  But  this  is  certainly 
true,  that  he  takes  up  all  those  great  convictions 
in  morals  and  religion  which  had  been  recognized 
as  "  the  natural  religion,"  and  enforces  them  by 
such  new  motives,  that  each  of  the  immortal  truths, 
as  it  is  re-uttered  by  him,  seems  so  new  as  to  amaze 
men.  That  is  proof  of  genius  in  a  merely  human 
teacher.  But  in  such  a  teacher  as  Jesus  speaking 
as  he  does,  this  newness  of  the  old  becomes  an  ad- 
ditional proof  of  the  divinity  of  himself  and  of  his 
utterances.  He  is  the  "  Light  of  the  world."  The 
created  sun  in  the  Genesis  narration  gathers  up  the 
cosmic  rays  of  the  dimly  diffused  light  in  the 
interstellar  spaces,  when  God  says,  "  Let  there  be 
light."  And  the  Christ  of  God  takes  up  into  him- 
self all  the  virtues,  and  into  his  teaching  all  the 
moral  knowledge  the  world  has  need  to  know. 

While  humanity  remains  ever  the  same  in  its  es- 
sential moral  requirements,  each  separate  age  has 
its  own  characteristic  needs.  It  has  its  own  ques- 
tions arising  from  its  own  stage  of  development. 
New  problems  confront,  old  problems  have  new 
emphasis.  And  in  view  of  these  things,  we  may 
ask  how  does  this  Christ  meet  them?  He  lived, 
it  is  true,  in  one  age,  among  one  nation,  and  in 
but  one  generation.  But  it  was  a  peculiar  age,  for 
it  had  gathered  up  into  itself,  with  a  kind  of  in- 
tellectual and  moral  universality,  all  that  was  best 
of  philosophic  thought,   all  that   was  valuable   of 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    169 

moral  teaching,  and  all  that  was  of  most  worth  in 
liberal  culture  that  the  previous  centuries  had  pro- 
duced. This  Christ  had  indeed  lived  amid  the 
scenes  of  a  single  national  life.  But  that  nation, 
though  so  small,  had  occupied  a  peculiar  position  in 
which  it  had  fronted  all  the  three  known  continents 
of  the  world.  Its  situation  was  such  that  every 
other  nation  had  coveted  it,  fought  for  it,  and 
hoped  to  possess  it  by  force  of  arms  or  of  diploma- 
cy. So  that  all  done  in  Palestine,  on  that  eastern 
shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  took  speedily  the  gaze 
of  the  whole  known  world.  This  Christ  lived  in  a 
single  generation,  but  it  was  a  generation  in  which 
Greek  thinking  and  universal  Roman  law  had  so 
quickened  all  human  impulse  that  the  spirit  of  an 
unwonted  emigration  had  seized  on  all  men,  and 
divers  populations  were  mingled  in  all  the  great 
central  cities  of  the  world  as  never  before;  so  that 
any  teacher  and  any  teaching  of  religion  had  world- 
wide audience  and  consideration.  And  thus  while 
much  of  Christ's  doctrine  might  be  unwelcome,  the 
knowledge  of  him  and  his  teachings  was  soon  wide- 
spread among  the  generations.  His  rules  for  out- 
ward conduct  were  few,  but  the  spirit  of  the  teach- 
ings went  down  into  the  central  life  of  every  man. 
If  the  forms  of  language  he  employed  were  Ori- 
ental, the  principles  he  enunciated  were  universal. 
In  him  the  ages  met  and  still  meet.  He  ever  liveth. 
To  speak  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  recognized  ex- 
emplification of  all  that  is  loving  would  seem  al- 


170  THE   MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

most  superfluous  in  a  century  in  which,  when  there 
is  any  exhibition  of  special  love,  men  are  agreed 
in  calling  such  an  instance  of  affection  peculiarly 
Christlike.  He  has  evoked  at  least  that  degree  of 
praise  from  all  mankind. 

The  day  for  assaults  upon  one  exhibiting  such 
traits  of  character  has  gone  by.  Humanity  will  not, 
endure  it.  Skeptics  dare  not  speak  against  Christ. 
They  know  that  the  reaction  would  harm  their 
cause.  On  the  very  surface  of  Christ's  life  the 
quality  of  love  is  manifest.  But  beneath  the  sur- 
face something  is  uniquely  basal.  It  evokes  in- 
quiry. What  is  the  peculiar  quality  behind  all  this 
love?  There  is  not  simply  a  profoundly  human 
love  for  humanity;  but  this  human  love,  a  radiant 
cloud  itself,  is  shot  through  and  through  by  the 
rays  of  a  sun  surpassing  in  glory  all  that  ever  shone 
before.  God's  love  in  its  perfection  sublimates  all 
human  love.  The  outward  miracles  of  merciful- 
ness are  in  themselves  wonderful ;  but  the  special 
wonder  is  the  Miracle-worker  himself.  And  no 
man  may  study  the  one  apart  from  the  other.  The 
miracles  do  more  than  heal  the  sick,  for  they  re- 
veal the  Christ  as  himself  the  miracle  of  miracles. 
See  the  impression  the  story  of  them  and  of  him 
as  their  author  has  left  upon  the  centuries.  Some- 
body made  that  impression  of  being  a  unique  per- 
son in  the  matter  of  loving — made  it  in  the  genera- 
tion in  which  he  lived;  made  it  as  the  record  was 
studied   in  the  next  centuries;  made   it  a  deeper 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    171 

thing  as  the  deeper  studies  of  these  last  long  cen- 
turies have  gone  on.  And  this  ever-growing  im- 
pression is  more  pronounced  to-day  than  ever  be- 
fore. The  whole  round  world  recognizes  Christ 
as  the  impersonation  of  love.  No  such  character  in 
the  height  and  depth  of  so  peculiar  a  love  had  been 
depicted  in  history. 

It  is  of  course  true  that  merely  human  affection 
has  had  its  picture  drawn  by  skilful  limners.  The 
imagination  had  been  given  largest  range  of  wing, 
and  had  fallen  backward  and  downward  in  discom- 
fiture. There  had  been  a  lack.  The  inwardness 
of  love  had  not  been  understood.  The  real  unique- 
ness was  not  even  imagined.  There  had  to  be  an 
original,  that  there  might  be  a  portrait.  The  Christ 
of  the  eternal  love  had  to  exist.  The  spectacle  of 
One  permitted  of  the  Father  to  become  an  exile 
from  his  native  heaven,  and  who,  while  true  to  the 
All  Holy  before  men,  is  yet  in  such  sympathy  with 
them  also  in  their  lowliness  and  weakness,  that  not- 
withstanding their  sinfulness,  he  will  become  the 
child  in  the  manger,  so  that  he  can  put  the  hand  of 
a  loving  helpfulness  under  each  weakest  man  and 
lift  him  out  of  his  resultant  weakness,  so  that  he 
can  raise  the  lowliest  from  sinfulness  to  the  fel- 
lowship of  the  All-holy  One — that  spectacle,  once 
seen,  holds  the  attention  forever  of  any  man  who 
will  look  upon  it  truly  even  for  a  single  moment. 

But  the  mingled  glory  and  abasement  of  the 
manger-birth  are  but  the  preparatory  exhibition  of 


172  THE    MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

this  singular  love.  The  motives,  as  Jesus  comes  up 
into  the  fulness  of  his  great  career,  has  no  com- 
mingling of  that  spiritual  pride  that  seeks  self-reali- 
zation as  the  end  of  life.  Self-development  is  not 
the  underlying  purpose,  but  "  the  loving  back  into 
love  "  of  those  who  had  lost  love  for  the  highest, 
holiest,  and  most  loving  One.  Jesus  Christ  is  bringing 
back  to  the  unthrifty  prodigal  clothes  and  shoes  and 
feast  and  home,  by  bringing  him  back  to  the  higher 
thing — by  restoring  the  Father  to  him  and  him  to 
the  Father.  It  is  the  divine  love  giving  the  human 
love  the  largest  scope  and  greatest  intensity — se- 
curing the  better  by  putting  foremost  the  best. 
Jesus  Christ  lives  that  marvelous  life  in  which,  in 
things  commanded,  he  is  our  example ;  but  in  more 
things,  and  those  the  uncommanded  things,  that  life 
is  not  to  be  attempted  by  us.  But  whether  he  is  with 
us  or  apart  from  us  in  his  mission,  the  peculiarity 
of  his  love  is  always  manifested.  It  is  love  having 
its  own  distinctive  quality ;  and  so  it  was  able  to 
touch  human  life  on  all  sides  of  it  as  he  stood 
among  living  men.  Individual  himself,  he  was  the 
great  individualist  in  his  teachings ;  but  the  indi- 
vidualism he  taught  touched  all  human  relations. 
He  owned  the  "  things  of  Caesar,"  and  also  the 
"  things  of  God."  The  swift  years  went  on,  and 
before  a  furrow  touched  his  brow  or  any  thread 
of  silver  graced  his  head,  in  the  glory  of  his  young, 
strong  manhood,  he  must  leave  us.  Then  came  the 
love  shown  in  Gethsemane  and  the  love  shown  also 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I73 

at  Calvary.  Description  is  impossible.  "  Behold 
what  manner  of  love !  "  No  man  ever  yielded  him- 
self to  the  conception  and  then  failed  to  believe  in 
"  the  love." 

One  more  thing  must  be  noticed.  It  is  the  unique 
union  of  nearness  and  yet  of  distance  that  this 
Christ  exhibits.  In  his  recorded  earthly  life  he 
presents  the  peculiar  pathos  of  a  being  from  another 
world  voluntarily  subjecting  himself  to  lower  con- 
ditions than  those  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed. 
Usually  the  great  man  has  a  certain  distance  about 
him;  is  not  easily  approachable;  is  aware  of  his 
own  distinction  in  talent,  in  acquirement,  in  position 
in  his  chosen  sphere  of  operation;  and  this  differ- 
ence constantly  manifests  itself.  It  makes  him  a 
man  apart  from  his  fellow-men.  He  is  detached 
from  common  people  by  his  sympathy  for  superior 
things  and  persons.  But  while  the  tokens  of  this 
consciousness  of  moral  superiority  are  clearly  mani- 
fest in  the  words  and  works  of  Jesus,  yet  strange 
to  say  that,  so  far  from  detaching  him,  this  superi- 
ority unites  him  to  the  race  of  mankind.  John, 
his  forerunner,  might  inhabit  the  wilderness.  Jesus 
inhabited  men.  He  rejoiced  with  them  at  their  mar- 
riages ,  he  wept  with  them  at  their  funerals.  He 
walked  with  them  on  the  windy  thoroughfares  of 
their  ordinary  life,  was  with  them  in  the  social  con- 
cerns of  their  sheltered  homes ;  and  yet  there  was 
constantly  the  separation  in  all  this  unity.  In  the 
middle   year   of   his   publicity  there   were   crowds 


174  THE    MATURE    MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

about  him ;  but  when  in  their  misunderstanding  they 
would  make  him  a  king  to  head  a  revolt  against 
Rome,  he  withdrew  from  them  to  a  desert  place. 
He  spent  whole  nights  in  prayer  and  whole  days  in 
his  public  work.  He  is,  in  turns,  honored  by  the 
crowds  and  forsaken  by  them.  Rejected  in  his 
home  city,  next  he  is  received  and  then  rejected  at 
Capernaum,  the  central  city  of  Jewish  commerce ; 
and  last  of  all,  he  is  received  and  rejected  at  Jeru- 
salem, the  central  city  of  the  Jewish  religion. 

John's  life  had  been  pathetic.  The  forerunner 
had  modestly  said  that  he  was  only  "  a  voice  " — 
"  a  voice  "  as  of  a  lone  bird  in  the  wilderness  calling 
for  its  mate;  only  "  a  voice,"  but  plaintive  as  of  one 
who  must  decrease  because  another  must  increase. 
John  gathers  the  crowd,  but  is  snatched  away  to  a 
solitary  prison,  and  his  life  is  taken  at  the  request 
of  a  dancing  girl.  He  is  only  a  "  voice  in  the  wil- 
derness." He  is  nothing  in  himself.  He  is  in  his 
whole  career  pathetic.  But  if  his  life  is  pathetic, 
the  career  of  Jesus  is  pathos  itself.  He  is  lonely 
among  crowds.  He  is  with  the  world,  but  is  not  of 
the  world.  His  mission  of  a  tragic  death  comes 
over  him.  In  the  midst  of  life  the  shadow  of  the 
cross  is  on  his  sunniest  days.  Separated  from  sin- 
ners he  is  adjudged  as  a  sinner  by  the  men  he  would 
save  from  sin.  His  life  would  seem  a  failure  be- 
cause of  his  death ;  but  instead  of  failure,  his  cross 
is  his  success,  and  above  all  he  ever  did  or  said, 
that  cross  has  drawn,  as  he  predicted,  the  attention 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    lj$ 

of  the  world.  Buried  in  a  borrowed  tomb,  he  rises 
to  build  his  church  on  an  emptied  sepulcher. 

As  men  meditate  on  the  vicissitudes  of  that 
earthly  life,  they  become  enamored  with  it.  No 
other  life  approaches  it  in  its  strange  separateness. 
And  yet  no  other  life  was  ever  lived  in  such  close 
intimacy  with  the  very  soul  of  every  man.  Human 
thought  can  ask  no  more;  can  do  no  more  and  no 
less  than  accept  the  fact  of  facts.  Let  human  thought 
reverently  own  its  Lord  and  Master  in  his  mingled 
glory  and  humiliation.  So  far  from  getting  beyond, 
it  does  not  reach  up  to  the  plane  he  occupies.  Let 
it  stand  apart  and  worship,  as  it  finds  in  him  the 
fulfilment  of  all  it  can  demand  and  desire.  Nothing 
else  can  give  such  psychological  satisfaction  as  the 
study  of  the  mind  of  Christ  and  of  his  influence  on 
human  thinking. 

Another  demand  is  disclosed  as  we  study  human 
thought  in  its  processes.  It  is  the  craving  for  a 
personality  manifested  both  in  God  and  in  man, 
and  calling  for  exhibition  in  some  single  being.  No 
natural  desire  is  stronger  than  that  which  finds  its 
satisfaction  in  persons  who  possess  similar  personal 
qualities.  There  is  a  hunger  of  the  soul  that  makes 
one  seek  another  person  with  whom,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, personality  can  be  shared.  It  is  not  only  the 
call  for  personality  of  the  same  intellectual  and 
moral  grade,  but  for  a  personality  of  similar  tastes 
and  acquirements.  When  this  is  found  we  call  it 
sometimes  the  "  giving  of  the  heart "  to  that  other 


I76  THE   MATURE   MAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 

person.  This  is  the  basal  fact  in  the  sociological 
and  moral  relationship  of  the  human  race.  Not 
only  being,  but  quality  of  being;  not  only  ability, 
but  character,  is  required  in  order  that  our  own 
personality  may  find  its  rest  in  that  of  another 
being.  Dropping  for  a  moment  the  fact  of  a  sinful 
perversion,  and  remembering  only  those  wonderful 
endowments  bestowed  on  human  nature  as  such,  we 
may  think  of  man  as  craving  God  and  of  God  as 
equally  craving  man.  Each  would  find  satisfaction 
in  the  other.  There  is  capacity  for  response  in  all 
intellectual  being.  There  is  capacity  for  response  in 
all  moral  being.  There  is  response  in  the  whole  tier 
of  our  faculties  for  the  highest  kind  of  life  that 
man  can  possibly  know. 

But — we  may  not  ignore  it — there  has  been  a 
misfortune  and  something  worse  than  misfortune. 
There  has  come  into  our  nature  a  disorderly  ele- 
ment, a  disturbing  force,  a  sad  moral  revolution 
which,  leaving  us  still  men  with  all  our  noble  fac- 
ulties, has  brought  about  that  perversion  of  them 
which  so  pains  every  careful  student  of  our  human 
nature.  It  alters  psychological  fact.  It  tends  to 
dim  some  perceptions,  to  throw  some  potencies  out 
of  order.  It  disturbs  that  harmony  of  working 
which  we  can  see  was  originally  a  possibility.  True, 
there  still  remain  the  original  cravings  of  these  nat- 
ural faculties  after  God ;  though  so  often  overborne 
by  the  voluntary  and  sinful  nature.  The  soul's  best 
instincts  are  in  the  prison-house  under  the  throne- 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    \J7 

room,  while  inferior  desires  take  the  throne  orig- 
inally occupied  by  the  better  self.  But  the  usurping 
"  servant  abideth  not  in  the  house  forever  "  by  any 
right.  And  God  looks  down  on  his  work  marked 
and  marred  by  this  human  sin.  We  shrink  under 
his  gaze.  And  yet  in  our  best  moments  we  would 
rather  have  him  look  with  condemning  eye  than  with 
approving  eye  upon  us  in  our  sinfulness.  We  may 
not  suppress  the  fact  of  the  sin.  We  lower  our- 
selves in  moral  grade  by  any  suppression  or  de- 
nial. God  should,  and  God  does,  with  his  infinitely 
pure  conscience,  condemn  us.  But  we  are  still  in 
the  grade  of  moral  beings — the  grade  in  which  he 
exists.  He  must  still  love  us  as  those  who  have 
capacities  for  loving  him  and  for  being  loved  by 
him.  His  love  is  the  broad  love  for  similar  grade 
of  being.  If  the  sin  could  be  forgiven  and  the  man 
morally  restored,  then  God  could  again  love  with 
the  love  of  moral  approbation.  Can  this  be  done? 
No  fiat  of  omnipotence  can  change  the  fact  or  the 
quality  of  even  a  single  sin.  It  cannot  be  annihi- 
lated, cannot  \>z  treated  as  a  nonentity,  cannot  be 
overlooked;  nor  can  it  ever  perish  from  the  mem- 
ory of  God  that  a  wrong  has  been  done.  So  far 
as  can  be  seen  by  us,  there  is  only  one  way  out  of 
it — that  of  forgiveness.  Can  it  be  forgiven? 
All  the  best  thinking  of  the  old  thinkers  insisted 
that  this  could  not  be  done.  It  was  thought  that 
one  must  suffer  out  the  natural  penalty  of  wrong- 
doing.    But  that  is  exactly  the  opposite  of  the  for- 

M 


I78  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

giveness  of  a  sin.  Forgiveness  of  a  sin  means  the 
divine  remembrance  of  it — or  there  would  be  noth- 
ing recalled  to  be  forgiven;  the  divine  judgment 
on  it  that  it  was  wrong,  or  there  would  be  nothing 
existent  to  have  forgiveness ;  the  divine  obligation 
to  punish  it — or  there  would  be  no  moral  govern- 
ment in  God's  universe.  And  so  forgiveness  is  no 
easy  thing  to  conceive  of  or  to  accomplish.  A 
Chinese  philosopher  said,  "  God  could  no  more  for- 
give a  sin  than  he  could  make  twice  two  to  be  five." 
It  is  plain  that  there  must  be  somewhere  an  ade- 
quate reason  for  forgiving  a  sin  if  that  thing  is 
ever  to  be  done.  Fiat  forgiveness  would  be  no  for- 
giveness at  all. 

Then  too,  associated  with  the  forgiveness  must  be 
the  restoration  of  the  qualities  that  God  loves,  so 
that  his  love  may  be  more  than  the  mere  love  of 
being,  but  may  be  the  love  of  the  right  moral  qual- 
ity in  the  being  loved.  Divine  love  seeks  to  do  both 
things,  viz.,  to  find  an  object  of  the  same  moral 
grade,  and  then  to  find  in  that  same  grade  a  being 
with  the  responsive  qualities.  Alike  in  Old  Testa- 
ment and  New,  this  distinction  as  to  qualities  of 
love  finds  expression.  But  here  is  the  further  fact 
of  God  proposing  to  love  men  back  into  loving  him. 
He  will  solve  the  double  problem  of  forgiveness  and 
of  restoration.  He  will  do  it  through  the  manifesta- 
tion of  himself  in  the  Person  of  all  persons — the 
personal  Christ.  We  must  not  think  of  God  as  im- 
passive.     If   man   may   voluntarily   suffer   in   self- 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I79 

denial  for  others'  good,  then  God  may  do  it;  other- 
wise man  would  in  that  matter  be  superior  to  God. 
But  all  discussion  concerning  theories  of  moral 
atonement  and  of  spiritual  renewal  would  lead  us ' 
far  afield.  There  are  many  of  them.  Probably 
each  has  some  truth  about  it,  and  probably  each 
some  error.  Each  meets  some  want  in  human 
thought  or  experience.  The  whole  truth  of  atone- 
ment or  of  renewal  no  one  can  possibly  know  save 
God  himself.  The  little  part  we  do  see  fills  us  with 
amazement  as  we  recognize  in  it  the  manifestation 
of  the  divine  love  in  its  yearning  for  all  men,  and 
as  it  finds  its  rest  and  satisfaction  in  those  who 
are  moved  to  a  true  response  toward  this  love  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  The  processes  of 
Christian  thought  as  we  turn  the  thick-leaved  vol- 
ume of  religious  experience  are  shown  to  find  their 
complete  fruition  now  in  one  and  now  in  another 
phase  of  Christ's  marvelous  personality  and  of  his 
accomplished  redemption.  Now,  his  manhood  sat- 
isfies, and  he  is  to  believers  in  him  the  great  human- 
hearted  Jesus  Christ;  and  anon,  when  a  few  years 
have  gone  by,  it  is  the  divine  Christ,  the  Christ  of 
the  dateless  years,  as  depicted  in  John's  Gospel,  who 
meets  the  soul's  cravings.  At  one  time  the  incarna- 
tion— just  the  simple  fact  of  his  wonderful  coming 
— fills  all  the  horizon  of  one's  thought;  at  another 
it  is  that  singular  life  in  the  fulness  of  it  that  rises 
into  prominence.  Sometimes  the  atoning  death  as, 
in  his  own  words,  his  "  blood  is  shed  for  the  remis- 


l80  THE   MATURE   MAN'S  DIFFICULTIES 

sion  of  sins,"  comes  home  to  the  soul,  and  sometimes 
Christ's  resurrection  is,  as  with  Paul,  the  lens 
through  which  one  looks  back  at  the  death,  and 
then  back  through  the  death  to  the  previous  life, 
and  then  back  through  the  life  to  the  mysterious 
One  "  born  of  a  woman "  at  Bethlehem. 

And  in  foremost  moments  of  Christian  experience 
the  heart  goes  on  beyond  the  resurrection  to  the 
ascension  of  the  Lord.  The  completed  conception 
of  a  resurrection  asks  for  the  latter  event.  His 
body  was  not  to  remain  in  the  grave.  No  more  was 
he  to  live  a  bodily  life  on  earth.  It  was  no  merely 
spectacular  event  when  Jesus  visibly  ascended  in 
the  heavens.  There  was  to  be  an  enthronement 
of  humanity  as  manifesting  God.  Jesus  was  not 
only  to  get  the  victory  over  death  by  submitting  to 
it  and  by  rising  from  it,  but  resurrection  was  to 
have  its  fit  crown  in  the  wonderful  ascension.  There 
was  a  completeness  not  only  in  the  event  as  an 
event,  but  in  the  world's  completed  thought  of  him 
in  all  ages.  Claiming  to  be  the  Lord  "from  heaven," 
it  was  the  fit  thing  for  Christ  to  resume  his  own 
heaven. 

That  was  a  glorious  ending  for  the  Christ.  And 
parallel  thereto,  it  is  a  glorious  thing  for  a  human 
soul  when  it  resumes  its  native  place;  when,  after 
seeking  elsewhere  in  vain,  it  returns  to  quench  its 
thirst  for  the  divine  at  the  fountain  of  the  Infinite 
Fulness ;  when  it  hears  Christ  say,  "  Come  unto  me 
and  drink." 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    l8l 

We  may  pause  here.  Hitherto  the  view  has  been 
perspective;  let  it  now  be  retrospective.  Arrived 
at  the  position  to  which  human  thought  considered 
as  a  process  has  led  us,  we  can  stand  on  this  moun- 
tain peak  and  look  with  clearer  vision  on  what  was 
regarded  only  in  a  general  way  as  we  came  on  and 
climbed  to  this  eminence.  Human  thought  not  so 
much  in  its  contents  as  in  its  processes  has  been 
studied;  though  it  has  had  to  be  studied  only  in  a 
broad  and  general  way.  But  now  on  this  eminence 
and  in  the  clearer  light  of  God's  self-revelation  in 
Jesus  Christ,  we  can  see  (i)  the  records  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  their  more  specific  meaning.  Before 
the  view  could  only  be  generic;  but  now  such  a 
personage  as  Jesus  Christ  once  found,  we  can  rec- 
ognize, not  so  much  a  normal  and  natural  as  a 
special  and  providential  development  in  Hebrew 
history.  A  hand  is  seen  in  it  as  in  no  other  history 
which  has  come  down  to  us  across  the  separating 
centuries.  Both  the  events  themselves  and  the  book 
that  records  them  show  something  unaccountable 
when  regarded  apart  from  God's  inspiration.  No 
wonder  that  those  who  insist  on  believing  that  only 
national  development  is  to  be  looked  for  in  that  He- 
brew history  are  perplexed.  No  wonder  that  on 
merely  naturalistic  conceptions  they  find  contradic- 
tions and  almost  absurdities.  Having  missed  the 
one  special  purpose — that  of  a  unique  development 
of  God's  revelation  of  himself — they  have  to  invent 
now  this  and  now  that  theory  to  account  for  the 


l82  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

prevalence  in  the  history  of  Israel  not  only  of  pe- 
culiar facts,  but  also  of  ideas  far  in  advance  of  what 
was  possible  as  the  result  of  any  merely  natural 
evolution.  Such  conceptions  of  God  and  of  man's 
duty  to  him,  such  ideas  of  moral  righteousness,  such 
an  outlook  upon  the  material  and  spiritual  universe, 
are  long  centuries  in  advance  of  what  any  merely 
naturalistic  student  would  expect  to  find.  And  so 
those  who  have  set  up  the  standard  of  "  natural 
moral  development "  have  wished  to  redate  the 
books  and  to  discover  for  them  far  later  authors 
who  wrote  in  far  later  times. 

But  here  is  the  peculiarity:  that  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament these  advanced  moral  conceptions  do  not 
grow  from  any  natural  germs.  No  circumstances 
nor  situations  will  account  for  the  phenomena. 
They  cannot  be  explained  as  arising  from  any  ordi- 
nary process.  Psalmists  and  prophets  in  their  utter- 
ances are  very  far  beyond  their  age,  and  as  far 
beyond  and  above  their  own  personal  development 
of  knowledge  or  of  piety.  No  "  spirit  of  the  age  " 
can  account  for  these  conceptions.  These  men  see 
their  own  times  indeed;  but  they  often  see  far  on 
beyond  their  own  nationality,  beyond  their  own 
century,  and  even  beyond  their  own  dispensation. 
There  is  one — only  one — explanation.  It  is  Jesus 
Christ.  "  The  Spirit  of  Christ  in  them  did  testify." 
"  To  him  gave  all  the  prophets  witness."  He  had 
his  theophanies.  He  came  to  men  before  he  came 
into  the  human  race  at  Bethlehem.    He  came  to  the 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    183 

tent  of  Abraham  who,  the  devoutest  of  monothe- 
ists,  recognized  in  his  visitor  the  "  Lord  his  God." 
He  spoke  as  a  friend  "  face  to  face"  with  Moses; 
was  "  Captain  of  the  Lord's  host"  to  Joshua;  and 
he  was  the  "  fourth "  with  the  three  men  in  the 
fiery  furnace  when  all  cried  out,  "  The  Son  of 
God." 

And  in  addition  to  the  theophanies,  there  was 
shed  occasionally  upon  historian  and  prophet  and 
poet,  and  sometimes  upon  the  whole  Hebrew  peo- 
ple, a  peculiar  moral  illumination.  There  was 
"  open  vision  "  at  times.  There  was  the  direction 
to  Moses  to  "  write  these  things  in  the  book  " ;  and 
the  "  word  of  the  Lord  "  was  something  that  was 
so  far  beyond  not  only  heathendom,  but  beyond 
Israel  itself,  that  at  times  there  was  danger  of 
worship  of  the  written  "  law  of  the  Lord  "  instead 
of  the  worship  of  God  himself.  But  from  this 
merely  physical  reverence  for  "  the  roll "  they 
were  to  be  delivered  by  that  better  spiritual  rever- 
ence when,  in  obedience  to  the  Christ  "  they 
searched  the  Scriptures  "  because,  as  he  said,  "  they 
testify  of  me."  These  Scriptures,  always  in  Christ's 
heart  while  he  was  with  us,  were  constantly  on  his 
lips.  He  connected  with  himself  and  his  mission 
many  a  verse  of  the  Old  Testament  which,  apart 
from  his  words,  we  should  not  have  called  Mes- 
sianic, so  saturated  was  he  with  the  book,  and  so 
spiritual  was  his  interpretation  of  it.  That  book 
was   all    focused   on  himself,   as  he  told  the  two 


184  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

travelers  to  Emmaus.  As  the  oak  in  the  acorn,  so 
the  primal  promise  in  the  first  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment books  held  in  itself  the  Christ  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  whole  process  of  the  world's  de- 
voutest  thought  completed  itself  in  Jesus  Christ. 
And  then,  in  turn,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  which 
claim  for  themselves  to  be  a  revelation  of  God,  are 
divinely  indorsed  and  certified  by  him.  Thus  these 
writers  of  the  Old  Testament  were  planetary  souls 
deriving  their  light  from  this  sun.  He  quotes  them 
as  written  authority  in  religion. 

We  can  see  (2)  that  God's  exaltation  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  in  line  with  his  method  of  ruling  the 
world  through  great  men. 

The  question  has  been  often  debated  whether  the 
great  movements  in  the  history  of  the  race  have 
come  through  "  the  spirit  of  the  age,"  or  whether 
they  came  about  through  the  advent  of  some  great 
man  who  has  turned  into  new  channels  the  course 
of  affairs.  But  whatever  may  be  true  in  these  last 
more  democratic  centuries,  human  history  as  a  great 
whole  has  been  dominated  by  "  the  great  man." 
God,  to  use  the  words  spoken  of  an  ancient  world 
ruler,  has  in  every  case  "  raised  him  up."  God  has 
directly  or  indirectly  used  him.  The  great  man  has 
often  seen  "  the  tendency  of  the  age  " ;  and  his  great- 
ness has  shown  itself  in  his  ability  to  put  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  popular  movement,  and  stamp 
his  own  impress  on  the  plastic  clay.  Great  men 
the  centuries  through  have  led  the  world  in  war 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    185 

and  in  peace,  in  commerce  and  in  statesmanship. 
And  this  fact  is  the  standing  puzzle  of  those  who 
would  account  for  the  events  of  human  history  on 
merely  naturalistic  principles;  who  would  leave  no 
room  for  God  because  giving  so  much  room  for 
man's  natural  development.  They  who  insist  on 
the  narrower  view  must  themselves  admit,  as 
Ranke  says  about  them,  "  that  they  always  leave 
something  unexplained."  One  might  say  that  they 
make  most  things  inexplicable.  And  to  such  men 
the  religious  genius  is  always  the  greatest  puzzle. 
He  is  utterly  outside  the  regular  processes  of  men- 
tal and  moral  development.  There  is  no  place  for 
him.  He  is  an  intrusion  upon  their  mathematics. 
And  yet  he  is  a  factor  in  human  history.  He  has 
overturned  nations,  crushed  or  promoted  liberty, 
helped  or  hindered  whole  ages  of  civilization  and 
changed  the  whole  map  of  the  world  for  the  better 
or  the  worse.  There  is  no  danger  of  the  decay  of 
religions  in  the  world,  each  named  for  its  leader. 
The  only  question  is  which  one,  in  the  long  proba- 
tion of  the  centuries,  is  to  have  moral  preeminence  ? 
which  has  in  it  the  person  who  so  sums  up  essen- 
tial moral  thought  that  it  can  wait  for  the  final 
victory?  which  one  of  them  gathers  itself  about  a 
person  predicted  in  the  continuous  existence  and 
the  processes  of  the  moral  faculties  in  man,  reflect- 
ing as  they  do  the  intellectual  and  moral  faculties 
and  processes  of  God  himself? 
The  one  great  man,  "  the  Son  of  man,"  as  he 


l86  THE   MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

called  himself,  the  central  potency  of  the  gospel,  is 
Jesus  Christ.  So  far  as  our  argument  is  concerned, 
we  need  not  consider  the  question  of  how  far  his 
religion  has  or  has  not  prevailed  as  yet.  For  if  it 
had  not  as  yet  a  dozen  professed  believers  on  earth, 
that  fact  could  not  harm  the  thing  we  are  seeking  to 
find,  viz.,  the  mental  and  moral  processes  shown 
in  a  human  soul  as  indicative  of  the  moral  self- 
manifestation  of  God.  To  Jesus  Christ  they  all 
point.  He  is  the  focus,  not  only  of  all  noble  im- 
agination, but  of  all  perpetual  fact  in  our  mental 
and  moral  constitution  as  men.  "  We  see  not  yet 
all  things  put  under  him — but  we  see  Christ " ;  so 
reasons  a  great  reasoner  in  his  argument  for  the 
Christ  of  Christianity.  Presently  blurred  vision 
will  become  clear,  and  the  Christ  now  getting  par- 
tial recognition  from  the  best  souls  in  the  world 
will  come  to  be  seen  in  the  completed  faith  of  the 
final  ages.  Even  now  there  are  unmistakable  signs 
of  a  "  return  to  faith  "  in  foremost  thinkers.  Christ 
is  getting  himself  acknowledged  as  the  "  model 
man."  But  this  is  only  one  step.  For  he  being  the 
model,  we  are  all  as  men  far  from  the  standard  he 
sets  for  us  in  his  spirit  and  life.  And  so  by  that 
standard  shown  to  be  sinners,  men  must  come  to 
recognize  him  as  their  needed  Saviour  as  well.  The 
whole  Christ  of  the  New  Testament  will  have  to  be 
taken  up  at  length  into  human  thought  as  in  his 
completeness  he  meets  its  demands,  fulfils  its 
purposes,  and  becomes  its  culmination. 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    187 

It  may  be  asked  why  if  these  premonitions,  indi- 
cations, expectations,  and  anticipations,  these  unique 
faculties,  these  intellectual  and  moral  intuitions  do 
really  exist,  every  man  does  not  actually  go  on  by 
virtue  of  all  these  human  qualities  to  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  God  and  his  Christ  ?  There  is  only  one 
answer.  It  is  this :  the  "  bad  miracle  of  sin  "  has 
occurred,  thwarting  right  moral  action.  The  trail 
of  the  serpent  is  on  the  fairest  flowers  of  our  Eden. 
And  so  there  is  need  as  well  as  opportunity  for  the 
"  good  miracle  of  gracious  and  divine  intervention  " 
by  which  our  Eden  can  be  regained.  And  these 
very  thwartings  of  a  better  tendency  only  show 
more  clearly  the  original  constitution  and  course  of 
human  nature  in  its  processes  of  thought.  The  di- 
vine ideal  in  this  work  of  God  seeks  the  actual  and 
never  rests  until  it  finds  it  in  the  revealed  Christ. 

We  see  also  (3)  from  the  position  we  have  now 
gained  that  the  persons  who  depict  such  a  historic 
Christ  in  the  New  Testament  must  both  have  needed 
and  received  divine  assistance  in  their  work.  The 
earliest  Christian  documents  were  some  of  the 
Epistles.  These  give  us  the  Christ  as  the  Gospels 
do  not,  in  his  broadest  relations  both  Godward  and 
manward.  There  was  needed,  and  there  was  fur- 
nished, first  of  all,  documentary  statement  of  the 
meaning  of  Christ's  career — the  broad  comprehen- 
sive survey  and  declaration  of  the  gospel  in  its 
wholeness.  There  were  subsequently  added  what  are 
known  as  "  the  four  Gospels,"  the  office  of  which 


188  THE   MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

was  to  fill  in  the  grand  outline  statements  with  their 
many  incidents  of  Christ's  career.  Now  it  is  clear 
that  any  such  thing  as  a  misstatement  through  lack 
of  apprehension  of  the  great  object,  the  fundamental 
purpose,  and  the  comprehensive  scope  of  the  new 
religion,  would  make  it  so  untrustworthy  as  to  be 
useless.  In  such  a  matter  above  every  other  under 
the  face  of  the  whole  heavens,  accuracy  is  needed 
and  mistake  is  fatal.  The  wonderful  advent  with 
all  that  occurred  between  it  and  the  wonderful  res- 
urrection and  ascension  might  almost  as  well  never 
have  occurred,  and  such  a  Christ  might  almost  as 
well  never  have  left  his  native  heaven,  as  to  have 
had  the  whole  moral  conception  of  it  liable  to  mis- 
take on  this  all-important  matter.  We  can  allow 
the  "  personal  equation  "  its  full  expression  so  far 
as  mode  of  utterance  in  speaker  and  method  of 
composition  in  writer  is  concerned.  But  an  error 
in  the  vital  conception  of  the  whole  substance  and 
of  the  entire  moral  meaning  of  the  new  religion 
could  not  be.  We  can  all  make  mistakes  enough  with- 
out an  untrustworthy  guide.  The  God  who  did  so 
much  in  sending  the  Only  Begotten  would  not  be 
likely  to  put  the  gift  in  such  peril  as  to  make  it 
practically  worthless  through  any  lack  of  directing 
the  men  who  were  to  make  authentic  records  by  di- 
rection of  their  Master.  At  least  some  degree — to 
say  the  least — of  divine  guidance  may  reasonably  be 
considered  as  absolutely  necessary  to  perpetuate  the 
knowledge  of  "  the  gift  of  all  gifts." 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    189 

And  if  we  turn  from  Epistle  to  Gospel,  the  de- 
mand is  in  another  way  equally  evident.  When  we 
see  from  the  daily  press  of  our  own  times  how 
thoroughly  unlike  is  the  story  of  the  same  transac- 
tion as  given  by  two  equally  honest  reporters,  we 
must  hold  it  true  that  the  record  of  such  peculiar 
words  and  works  as  those  of  Jesus  Christ  needs, 
if  it  is  to  be  trustworthy,  a  superintendence  that  is 
more  than  human.  If  the  utterances  of  the  merely 
human  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  are  intro- 
duced by  the  formula,  "  thus  saith  the  Lord,"  it 
must  not  be  held  strange  that  Jesus  declared  that 
the  guiding  "  Spirit  of  God  "  should  lead  the  record- 
ing apostles  "  into  all  truth  "  about  "  the  things  he 
had  spoken  " — a  promise  which  has  no  other  cred- 
ible claimants  than  these  New  Testament  writers. 
Their  story  is  not  translucent;  it  is  transparent. 
You  are  not  looking  in  a  dim  mirror,  but  through 
crystalline  glass.  The  personal  element  is  reduced 
to  a  minimum.  These  writers  see,  and  they  let 
you  see,  Jesus  as  he  is  doing  his  works ;  they  hear 
him,  and  make  you  hear  him,  as  he  utters  his  words. 
You  are  in  the  Lord's  presence.  You  are  breath- 
ing his  atmosphere.  Forgetting  themselves  they  ex- 
hibit him;  and  it  is  only  afterward  that  you  think 
of  the  art  of  their  artlessness  as  they  give  us  their 
imperishable  story.  Through  their  perfect  sym- 
pathy with  him  you  get  the  double  conviction  that 
he  was  the  One  he  claimed  to  be,  and  that  they 
were  divinely  assisted  in  their  story  of  what  he  did 


IgO  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

and  said.  Take  at  random  almost  any  narration 
as  you  open  your  New  Testament.  Your  Bible 
opens,  it  may  be,  at  the  great  prayer  of  the  Lord 
when  he  is  praying  for  his  disciples  just  before  his 
death : 

Father,  the  hour  is  come;  glorify  thy  Son  that 
thy  Son  also  may  glorify  thee ;  as  thou  hast  given 
him  power  over  all  flesh  that  he  should  give  eternal 
life  to  as  many  as  thou  hast  given  him.  And  this  is 
life  eternal  that  they  might  know  thee  the  only  true 
God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  thou  hast  sent.  I  have 
glorified  thee  on  the  earth,  I  have  finished  the  work 
which  thou  gavest  me  to  do.  And  now,  O  Father, 
glorify  thou  me  with  thine  own  self,  with  the  glory 
which  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was.  I 
have  manifested  thy  name  unto  the  men  which  thou 
gavest  me  out  of  the  world;  thine  they  were  and 
thou  gavest  them  me,  and  they  have  kept  thy  word. 
Now  they  have  known  that  all  things  whatsoever 
thou  hast  given  me  are  of  thee.  For  I  have  given 
them  the  words  which  thou  gavest  me,  and  they 
have  received  them  and  have  known  surely  that  I 
came  out  from  thee  and  they  have  believed  that 
thou  didst  send  me.  I  pray  for  them.  I  pray  not 
for  the  world,  but  for  them  which  thou  hast  given 
me;  for  they  are  thine.  All  mine  are  thine  and 
thine  are  mine;  and  I  am  glorified  in  them.  And 
now  I  am  no  more  in  the  world,  but  these  are  in 
the  world  and  I  come  to  thee.  Holy  Father,  keep 
through  thine  own  name  those  whom  thou  hast 
given  me,  that  they  may  be  one  as  we  are.  While 
I  was  with  them  in  the  world  I  kept  them  in  thy 
name ;  those  that  thou  gavest  me  I  have  kept  and 
none  of  them  is  lost,  but  the  son  of  perdition ;  that 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I9I 

the  Scripture  might  be  fulfilled.  And  now  I  come  to 
thee  and  these  things  I  speak  in  the  world,  that  they 
might  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves.  I  have 
given  them  thy  word ;  and  the  world  hath  hated 
them,  because  they  are  not  of  the  world,  even  as  I 
am  not  of  the  world.  I  pray  not  that  thou  shouldest 
take  them  out  of  the  world,  but  that  thou  shouldest 
keep  them  from  the  evil.  They  are  not  of  the  world 
even  as  I  am  not  of  the  world.  Sanctify  them 
through  thy  truth ;  thy  word  is  truth.  As  thou  hast 
sent  me  into  the  world,  even  so  have  I  sent  them 
into  the  world.  And  for  their  sakes  I  sanctify 
myself,  that  they  also  might  be  sanctified  through 
the  truth.  Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone,  but  for 
them  who  shall  believe  on  me  through  their  word ; 
that  they  all  may  be  one,  as  thou,  Father,  art  in 
me  and  I  in  thee ;  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us ; 
that  the  world  may  believe  that  thou  hast  sent  me. 
And  the  glory  that  thou  gavest  me  I  have  given 
them,  that  they  may  be  one  even  as  we  are  one;  I 
in  them  and  thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be  perfect 
in  one  and  that  the  world  may  know  that  thou  hast 
sent  me  and  hast  loved  them  as  thou  hast  loved  me. 
Father,  I  will  that  they  also,  whom  thou  hast  given 
me,  be  with  me  where  I  am;  that  they  may  behold 
my  glory,  which  thou  hast  given  me ;  for  thou  lov- 
edst  me  before  the  foundation  of  the  world.  O 
righteous  Father,  the  world  hath  not  known  thee; 
but  I  have  known  thee,  and  these  have  known  that 
thou  hast  sent  me.  And  I  have  declared  unto  them 
thy  name,  and  will  declare  it ;  that  the  love  where- 
with thou  hast  loved  me  may  be  in  them  and  I  in 
them. 

Such  is  the  prayer,  with  its  peculiar  blending  of 
agony  and  of  love,  its  affectionateness  toward  God 


192  THE    MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

and  its  sympathy  toward  man,  its  yearning  and  yet 
its  submission,  its  uplook  and  its  outlook,  that  its 
perfectness  would  have  been  conspicuously  marred 
had  there  been  no  special  divine  aid  granted  to  those 
who  thus  report  it.  Left  to  their  unassisted  mem- 
ory, they  must  have  spoiled  its  completeness  by 
omissions  here  and  there,  by  their  unfortunate  words 
and  by  their  unconscious  blunders — all  of  which  in 
the  report  of  such  a  prayer,  at  such  a  time,  by 
such  a  Christ,  would  be  painfully  apparent.  The 
"  prentice  hand  "  in  such  a  report  would  be  all  too 
manifest,  apart  from  the  fulfilment  of  the  prom- 
ised guidance.  The  record  of  that  prayer  as  now 
we  have  it  is  certainly  an  inspired  record. 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  prayer  itself?  It 
could  not  have  been  devised  and  thrust  into  the 
record.  We  might  rest  the  whole  proof  of  Chris- 
tianity on  that  one  prayer  alone.  Here  it  is  on 
record.  Some  one  prayed  this  prayer.  It  is  the 
innermost  heart  of  Jesus;  and  you  feel  the  very 
heart-beat.  You  see  him  as  he  wrestles  and  pre- 
vails. No  fiction  here.  He  is  open-hearted  toward 
his  Father  God.  No  one  but  this  Jesus  of  the 
Gospels  could  have  offered  that  prayer.  In  no  other 
circumstances  than  near  the  close  of  such  a  career 
as  that  of  Christ  could  even  he  have  offered  it. 
"  Never  read  it  again  in  public,"  said  one  of  the 
most  devout  of  Christians  to  her  pastor.  "  It  should 
never  be  read  except  alone,  on  one's  knees."  It 
is  the  laying  bare  of  Christ's  whole  soul  before  God 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I93 

and  before  man.  No  one  ever  so  prayed  before; 
no  one  will  ever  so  pray  again.  That  prayer  proves 
the  religion  of  Christ  as  he  gave  it  to  the  world  to 
be  true.  It  gathers  up  all  he  ever  did  or  said,  all 
he  had  been,  all  he  was,  and  all  he  is  to  be.  Read 
but  once,  read  reverently,  solemnly,  tenderly,  and 
doubt  about  Christ  and  his  religion  is  gone  forever. 

And  thus  human  thought,  on  its  knees  and  so  at 
its  best  and  in  its  culminating  moments,  has  its  goal. 
Process  finds  culmination.  The  lost  chord  is  struck 
once  more.  The  one  great  fact  toward  which  all 
human  faculty  turns  in  its  highest  exercise,  as 
turns  the  disturbed  needle  to  its  pole,  is  God's  self- 
revelation  in  Jesus  Christ.  In  the  prayer  just  quoted 
— the  true  Lord's  Prayer — Jesus  discloses  his  own 
consciousness  of  his  mission  when  he  says  to  his 
Father,  "  I  have  manifested  thy  name."  "  I  have 
glorified  thee  on  the  earth."  "  And  now  I  come  to 
thee." 

(4)  There  is,  when  we  look  back  on  these  mani- 
festations from  this  high  point  of  observation,  a  new 
view  of  the  material  world  itself,  as  connected  both 
with  Jesus  Christ  and  the  race  to  which  he  came 
that  he  might  bring  revelation  and  redemption.  The 
Christ  idea  is  the  matrix  for  the  formation  of  man 
and  for  the  world  with  which  he  is  correlated.  The 
moral,  as  the  highest  ideal,  dominates  the  physical, 
without  which  there  would  be  no  reason  or  right 
for  the  world's  existence;  and  God,  revealing  him- 
self in  Jesus  Christ,  dominates  all  other  revelations 

N 


194  THE   MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

in  the  physical,  the  intellectual,  and  the  moral 
realms.  These  material  heavens  may  be  conceived 
of  as  a  vast  tent  overarching  this  material  earth  of 
ours;  and  the  earth  itself  as  the  place  to  which 
come  both  God  and  man  to  present  before  the  uni- 
verse that  great  moral  transaction  in  which  each 
acts  freely — God  saving,  by  his  redemption  in  Jesus 
Christ,  the  sinful  man  who  otherwise  had  been  lost ; 
and  both  God  and  man  getting  therefrom  the  greater 
exaltation  and  the  larger  glory  by  this  double  exer- 
cise of  their  highest  personality;  so  that  even  the 
physical  world,  great  in  itself,  is  made  greater  as 
the  selected  place  for  a  special  divine  manifestation. 
And  thus  the  material  and  the  spiritual  universes 
are  found  to  be  used  and  honored  because  of  their 
relation  to  God's  constant  purpose  of  self -revelation. 
But  the  material  world  is  not  to  be  conceived  of 
as  merely  the  theater  of  a  special  divine  manifesta- 
tion. This  world  is  part  of  a  universe  composed 
of  matter  and  of  spirit,  each  of  which  has  relations 
to  the  other  and  both  have  relations  to  God.  Mat- 
ter and  its  forces  are  to  be  regarded  as  creations 
of  God  rather  than  as  emanations  and  developments.' 
The  entity  of  the  universe  in  its  fundamental  nature 
is  distinct  from  the  entity  of  God  in  his  essential 
nature.  It  is  always  outside  of  God  in  itself  and 
is  a  separate  thing  in  kind  of  existence ;  though  he 

is  transcendent  and  immanent  in  his  relations  to  it. 

i 

When  God  infuses  energy  into  it,  it  is  not  the  in- 
fusion of  himself,  but  of  his  created  forces.     Al- 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I95 

ways  we  must  keep  apart  the  two  radically  distinct 
ideas  of  a  creative  and  a  created  power.  Forces 
and  things  are  manifestations  not  of  the  substance 
of  God — for  then  we  would  worship  them — but  of 
the  conceptions  and  ideas  of  God.  They  are  his 
material,  usable  and  actually  used,  for  the  partial 
manifestations  of  his  attributes  and  perfections,  but 
not  a  part  of  his  essential  nature  itself. 

If  we  turn  from  the  things  and  forces  of  the 
material  universe  to  the  other  part  of  this  universal 
duality,  viz.,  spiritual  existence  with  its  forces,  we 
have  also  to  make  a  very  exact  distinction  between 
the  creative  and  the  created  entity.  There  is  no 
more  place  for  emanation  in  the  realm  of  spirit  than 
in  that  of  matter.  The  upward  development  of  a 
man  simply  because  he  is  in  part  a  spirit  until  he 
comes  to  be  a  god  is  not  a  possibility,  since  one  is 
the  creator  and  the  other  is  the  created.  Moral 
likeness  varies,  since  it  may  be  increased  or  dimin- 
ished; but  creational  fact  is  permanently  a  fact. 
If  then,  there  is  no  passing  from  the  one  to  the 
other,  we  must  posit  any  temporal  incarnation  of 
Jesus  Christ  as  only  an  individual  manifestation  in 
time,  of  an  eternal  incarnation.  As  he  existed  in 
primitive  glory  "  before  the  world  was,"  we  get 
back  to  the  conception  that  he  was  the  manifestation 
of  the  essential  and  spiritual  nature  of  God.  It 
follows  then,  that  we  may  think  of  "  the  divine  Son 
as  the  manifesting  person  of  the  Godhead."  The 
object  of  the  incarnation  may  be  conceived  of  as 


I96  THE    MATURE    MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

the  revelation  in  permanent  expression  of  God  him- 
self, whether  in  time  or  in  eternity;  and  so  it  is 
clear  that  the  eternal  future  belongs  also  to  man — 
to  him  as  a  race  having  Jesus  Christ  in  it,  in  whom 
God  eternally  impersonates  himself.  Humanity  is 
thus  forever  his  dwelling-place,  and  Christ  forever 
his  manifestation  of  his  own  Godhead.  This  is  the 
substance  of  the  song  of  the  most  psychological  of 
our  poets: 

In  the  Godhead!  I  seek  and  I  find  it, 
O  Saul,  it  shall  be, 

A  face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee, 
A  man  like  to  me.  .  .  See  the  Christ  stand !  ■ 

We  arrive  then,  at  the  fact  of  an  actual  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  universe,  created  purposely 
as  a  medium  for  the  manifestation  of  the  Christ  of 
God.  He  is  the  one  for  whom  as  well  as  by  whom 
all  things  were  made.  So  that  he  can  use  not  only 
the  material  he  has  created  in  souls  and  in  things, 
but  as  the  Creator,  and  so  himself  the  final  reason 
and  end  of  all,  he  can  make  special  and  individual 
manifestation  of  himself  in  closest  connection  with 
the  physical  world  of  things  and  the  moral  world 
of  souls.  Because  of  the  very  peculiar  position  of 
man  on  a  physical  earth,  with  both  a  physical  na- 
ture and  a  moral  nature,  and  because  of  the  at- 
tributes of  personality  conferred  upon  man,  Christ, 
in  order  to  any  real  manifestation  to  men  of  God- 
head itself  in  its  very  essence,  must  needs  be  born 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    197 

as  man.  Eternally  "  the  Son  of  God,"  he  is  to  be 
temporarily  incarnate,  i.  e.,  born  in  time.  Any 
manifestation  to  man  of  the  divine  Manifestor,  or 
any  redemption  of  the  divine  Redeemer  is  condi- 
tioned, in  part  at  least,  by  man's  own  apparatus 
of  thought  and  feeling,  by  his  moral  needs,  and 
by  his  singularly  related  physical  condition  and  sit- 
uation. These  not  only  create  a  demand,  but  fur- 
nish an  opportunity  for  a  specific  incarnation.  No 
other  being  can  be  an  incarnation  of  God,  since  the 
universe  was  "  made  for  him,"  i.  e.,  Christ,  as  well 
as  "  by  him,"  and  "  by  him  all  things  consist."  And 
while  the  universe  must  be  conceived  of  as  a  cre- 
ated entity  outside  of  the  nature  of  God,  the  mani- 
festing Christ  must  be  held  to  be  the  cause  and  the 
end  of  its  existence;  so  that  in  it  he  can  do  his 
work  of  manifesting  himself  as  the  God-man.  This 
is  exactly  the  scriptural  conception  (Col.  I  :  16). 
"  In  him  (in  Christ  as  the  ground  of  all)  were  all 
things  created  in  the  heavens  and  upon  the  earth; 
things  visible  and  things  invisible,  whether  thrones 
or  dominions  or  principalities  or  powers;  all  have 
been  created  through  him,"  i.  e.,  as  the  manifesting 
Christ  of  God ;  "  and  unto  him,"  i.  e.,  as  end  to 
which  the  whole  creation  looked.  "  In  him  all 
things  consist,"  i.  e.,  stand  together  after  they  are 
made  and  as  they  advance  toward  that  end.  So  also 
again  (Eph.  i  :  21),  "  He  (Christ)  is  far  above  all 
authority  .  .  .  and  every  name,  not  only  in  this 
world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come." 


I98  THE   MATURE   MAN'S   DIFFICULTIES 

Also  in  John  1  :  10:  "He  (Christ)  was  in  the 
world  and  the  world  was  made  by  him."  The 
general  biblical  representation  is  that  God  is  Cre- 
ator; and  in  strict  accord  with  this  general  repre- 
sentation is  the  more  definite  and  specific  declara- 
tion that  Christ,  as  the  manifesting  God,  created 
the  world  with  direct  reference  to  his  own  incarna- 
tion. Augustine,  representing  the  more  ancient 
"  creationism,"  in  distinction  from  the  "  emana- 
tionism  "  of  his  own  day,  and  from  the  "  develop- 
mental "  philosophy  of  the  preceding  heathen  centu- 
ries, claims  in  his  exposition  of  the  earlier  chapters 
of  Genesis,  a  threefold  form  of  creation,  viz. : 
(1)  An  original  pre-temporal  creation  of  inchoate 
spirit  and  matter;  (2)  a  re-creation,  or  rather  a 
re-formation,  out  of  this  unformed  spiritual  ma- 
terial, of  a  heaven  for  God;  (3)  a  re-forming,  or 
re-creating,  out  of  this  formless  matter  that  had 
been  dark  and  meaningless  (a  kind  of  nothingness 
that  was  the  negative  of  order  and  of  goodness) — 
of  a  material  earth  for  man  We  do  not  need  to 
indorse  these  details  of  Augusfcinian  interpretation; 
but  in  the  fitting  up  of  the  earth  for  man's  abode 
and  in  the  creation  of  man  with  peculiar  moral  fac- 
ulties corresponding  to  those  of  God  himself,  we 
can  see  that  the  work  of  the  manifesting  Christ  of 
God  has  both  its  opportunity  and  its  significance. 

We  can  see  also,  the  place  and  the  scope  for 
the  anticipatory  redemption  by  the  redeeming 
Christ.     He  was  no  afterthought.     He  was  "  the 


THE  BIBLICAL  CHRIST  AND  HUMAN  THINKING    I99 

Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world." 
The  eternally  existent  Christ  had  his  position,  as 
the  earthly  incarnate  Christ,  exactly  arranged ; 
the  eternal  purpose  had  its  exact  expression  at  the 
"  appointed  time."  He  dominates  in  all  things, 
alike  in  creation  and  redemption.  "  He  became 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  and  we  beheld  his  glory — 
the  glory  as  of  the  Only  Begotten  from  the  Father." 
If  we  conceive  of  the  creation,  first  of  all,  of  chaotic 
objects  and  forces  both  spiritual  and  physical,  and 
then  conceive  of  a  re-creation  or  re-forming  of  this 
plastic  material  by  the  manifesting  Christ  of  God 
for  the  express  purpose  of  a  divine  manifestation 
and  redemption,  the  chaos  of  meaninglessness  be- 
comes the  cosmos  of  moral  significance.  Then 
following  out  the  indications  given  in  Genesis 
(1:1  compared  with  I  :  7,  where  another  word, 
signifying  not  "  created,"  but  "  constructed,"  is 
used),  there  is  light  cast  on  those  New  Testament 
verses  in  which  Christ  is  called  "  the  beginning  of 
the  creation  of  God  "  and  "  the  image  of  the  invis- 
ible God,  the  firstborn  of  all  creation."  *  His  in- 
carnation is  regarded  in  the  Scriptures  as  foreseen 
in  the  vision  of  God  from  the  outset ;  so  that  he  is 
the  "  firstborn  "  in  dignity  of  all  that  are  ever  born. 
He  is  "  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the 
ending "  of  the  creation  of  God.  And  thus  over 
against  the  disharmony  of  sin — sin  that  very  actual, 
but  that  always  inexplicable  and  unreasonable  thing, 
iCol.  1  :  is,  r.  v. 


200  THE   MATURE   MAN  S   DIFFICULTIES 

alike  in  its  permission,  introduction,  and  continu- 
ance— there  arises  that  supreme  harmony  which 
comes  from  the  conception  of  a  divine  purpose  and 
of  an  ultimate  aim  in  a  universe  including  in  itself 
our  human  nature,  so  that  there  is  through  it  scope 
and  opportunity  for  manifestation  and  redemption 
in  Jesus  Christ,  alike  as  the  revealing  and  the 
redeeming  God. 

When  a  man  once  grasps  this  idea,  he  lives  in 
a  new  world.  He  sees  what  are  the  fundamental 
principles  of  human  thought;  and  he  sees  also  that 
these  are  simply  the  reflection  of  the  divine  thought. 
There  is  a  reason  for  the  universe  in  God  as  he 
declares  himself  in  his  Only  Begotten.  And  the 
fact  that  ultimate  human  thought  must  bow  rev- 
erently before  such  a  Christ  shows  that  this  won- 
derful apparatus  for  thinking,  with  its  instincts  and 
intuitions,  both  moral  and  intellectual,  with  its  po- 
tencies for  feeling  and  decision,  with  its  significant 
processes  of  activity,  has  been  given  us  so  that  we 
may  in  some  measure  be  the  interpreters  of  God's 
revelation  through  Jesus  Christ. 


Date  Due 

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